Documentaries: Recent Episodes
BBC
An indepth look at stories and issues from around the world. This podcast offers you the chance to access landmark series from our archive.
The Victoria falls, on the border of Zambia and Zimbabwe, is considered one of the natural wonders of the world. But as Isa Jacobson reports, there is concern that development around the waterfall could threaten the delicate ecosystem and exacerbate conflict between humans and wildlife.
South African police detective Frans Mathipa told his boss he feared that he would be killed by the country’s military. Two days later he was found shot dead in his car by the side of a motorway.
At the time of his death, Mathipa had been investigating whether special forces soldiers were behind the disappearance of Abdella Abadigga, a suspected member of so-called Islamic State or ISIS, and his bodyguard. So was Mathipa killed, as his colleagues believe, because of fears about what his investigation threatened to reveal?
Dino Mahtani and Yeshiel Panchia investigate an extraordinary case that sets one arm of the South African state against another.
Presenter: Dino Mahtani
Producer: Ed Main
Executive editors: Nick Norman-Butler and Andy Bell
Editor: Rebecca Henschke
Studio manager: Sam Dickinson
Archive: SABC and Facebook
In Lagos, a vast patch of scrubland is being imagined as the future home of Kebulania: an ambitious African film city on the edge of Nigeria’s biggest metropolis, and one of the centres of Nollywood, the country’s multi-billion dollar film industry. Nigerian journalist Samuel Okocha follows the project in its earliest, most uncertain days – when the vision is big, but the buildings are yet to rise. At the proposed site, he joins community members, contractors and staff from Del-York Creative Arts, a Nigerian conglomerate film and media training company, as traditional leaders offer prayers and blessings.
New Bell Prison in Douala, Cameroon, operates a bit like a city within a city. The facility has its own "taxis" (inmates who hand deliver messages), its own law enforcement (prisoners who help police the facility) and a market. The jail is overcrowded and under-resourced, and the occupants of New Bell have sometimes adapted the jail's overstretched systems to work for them. An on-site music studio and label, Jail Time Records, has also sprung up and found an international audience. Wedaeli Chibelushi, journalist for BBC World Online, Africa, tells the stories of some of the inmates involved.
In Egypt, Christians are a substantial minority, making up 10 to 15% of the population, but they're not always represented fairly in employment and public life. This month, the case of 13-year-old Makary Younan, who despite his talent was initially passed over for selection by a major Egyptian football academy, has led to a public debate over anti-Christian discrimination. BBC Arabic's Ahmed Omar has the story.
Wang Jibing, a Chinese food delivery rider in his fifties, has found a huge online following with reflective poems capturing his daily life and routines. Now, he's won one of China's top literary prizes. After growing up poor and doing many different jobs, Wang became a food delivery rider 2019. He often scribbles poems on scraps of paper between deliveries, but the prize he's won is named after poet Lu Xun, seen by many as the father of Chinese literature. Koh Ewe from the BBC's Hong Kong Bureau explains why so many Chinese people have taken him to their hearts.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Ariana Grande says she will be taking ‘a step back’ from public life. The reason, it seems, is the constant public commentary she faces – particularly surrounding her appearance. We bring together fans of the multi-award-winning singer and Oscar nominated actor to discuss the scrutiny facing women in the public eye. We also hear from women who have received abuse after posting on social media, including Ella, a high jump athlete from Finland. “I never imagined when I started doing sports as a little girl there would be a moment when I would receive messages that I should kill myself because I didn’t perform well or that I am the greatest embarrassment Finland has ever had” she says.
In Lithuania, singer Rūgilė Daujotaitė was becoming a familiar face on television. She was performing at major music events, competing for a place at Eurovision, and building a life that, from the outside, appeared successful. But privately, she says she was struggling. Raised in a family shaped by New Age spirituality and occult beliefs, Rūgilė grew up searching for God through a mixture of traditions. As an adult, she moved to Amsterdam to study jazz, became involved in shamanic practices and Santo Daime ceremonies, and began taking ayahuasca - a powerful psychedelic brew used in some religious rituals. Colm Flynn travels to Vilnius to meet Rūgilė in the home where she first encountered many of the ideas that shaped her early life. She reflects on leading retreats, introducing others to practices she has since rejected, and the moment she began reading the Bible and questioning the world she had embraced.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.
In the late '90s, in daring feats of DIY networking on rooftops across Romania’s capital, Bucharest, teenagers are stringing computer cables between tower blocks to share an internet connection. This guerilla infrastructure starts out scrappy, but it sprawls into an impressive improvised network that catches the attention of telecom giants. Told by those who built it, this is the extraordinary story of how a homemade system became the backbone of a city - a reflection of what the internet was meant to be and what it became.
Aviation is being reimagined for a changing planet: Vertical take-off passenger cars for city centres. Hydrogen powered planes for zero carbon travel. Hyper-sonic flights to take the London to Sydney journey to under two hours.
Kelly Latimer, US Aerospace engineer, flight test pilot, and former Flight Test Director of Virgin Galactic; Rob Miller, Net-zero aviation pioneer and Director of the Whittle Lab at Cambridge University, UK and Daniel Moczydlower, president of the Brazilian future aircraft innovators, Embraer-X, join BBC presenter Caroline Steel on stage in London, to discuss their trailblazing work and answer questions from a live audience at the Royal Geographical Society, London.
Amid the tents and the rubble Gaza is developing once again as an unlikely tech hub. Even before the 7 October 2023 attack and the subsequent war between Israel and Hamas, NGOs, with the backing of Google, had sought to develop tech start-ups in the Gaza strip. The digital economy was one of the few areas in which young Gazans in particular could seek to earn money for their families. During the two years of war they struggled for food and water. Forced to move from place to place, most of them lost their homes, their work, sometimes their laptops and plenty lost family members. Now 80% of Gazans are unemployed and have no income. Many of them live amid the rubble in tents. Stable electricity and internet are difficult to come by. And yet co-working hubs have begun to pop up, giving well educated graduates a chance to work remotely for foreign companies as coders, software engineers and app developers.. Yolande Knell reports on how its tech workers give a glimpse of a brighter, possible future, open to the world beyond Gaza’s borders.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Assignment.
Nine Yards, the designers behind the Paris 2024 Olympic skatepark, get to work on their next big challenge: the rebuild of Olympiaplein, one of Amsterdam's oldest and most cherished skating spots. Sean Allsop joins designers Jesper Kuipers and Jeroen Van Eggermond in the Netherlands, as they work through sketches and plans before presenting their vision to local skaters for crucial feedback. Then the team head out onto the building site, with concrete trucks, tight deadlines, and one shot to get the surface smooth for skaters of all levels, before the gates open and a community gets to skate again. We explore how skating has evolved from an underground sport into an established movement, the community within skateparks, and the intricate detail that goes into every park.
The extremist content quietly spreading on TikTok and Instagram, targeting unsuspecting young people. Through what is disguised as innocuous lifestyle content, supporters of jihadist groups like IS and al-Qaeda reach audiences outside their echo chamber. This is a recruitment drive that signals a move from direct operational instructions to “do-it-yourself jihad", with the aim of potentially inspiring lone wolf attacks. The Global Jigsaw explores the tactics used to obscure and evade detection, the challenges this poses for platforms, and how it has become a relentless game of whack-a-mole.
Find out more about BBC Monitoring on our website: monitoring.bbc.co.uk
Contributors: Mariam Soussi, Mina al-Lami
Producer: Kriszta Satori, Elchin Suleymanov
Presenter: Krassi Ivanova Twigg
Music: Pete Cunningham
When Chinese policeman Dong Guangping wrote an article commemorating the 10th anniversary of the 1989 military crackdown on pro-democracy protesters in Beijing, it kicked off a chain of events that led to him serving jail time and losing his job. But it also sparked the beginning of a deep desire to live more freely. So Dong began planning how he might escape China. Just a few weeks ago, back in late May, he finally achieved his dream, having taken the huge risk of crossing China's Yellow Sea in a dinghy to reach South Korean waters. Phoebe Kong, based in the BBC's Hong Kong bureau, explained how rare Dong's achievement really is.
Yemen has faced decades of economic hardship and war, but the khat industry is thriving. Khat is a plant, and when chewed it acts as a stimulant. It is estimated to consume one-third of Yemen's groundwater and occupy much of the country's agricultural land. Dalia Haidar of BBC Arabic has been looking into Yemen's relationship to khat and the problem it can cause.
The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.
Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.
If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas and Caroline Ferguson
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Wildfires continue to burn across the continent. Thousands of people have been evacuated on the Greek island of Crete, as well as in western France, Spain, Portugal and Turkey. A blaze in central Spain has burned almost 80,000 hectares over the last week and is now considered the largest recorded wildfire in Spanish history. With temperatures hitting more than 40 degrees Celsius in south-western France, firefighters, planes and helicopters have been battling fires there. Muriele in France and Julian in Spain share their experiences of escaping the flames. Robin – on holiday with his family – describes what it was like as the fire approached their French campsite. “The pool was getting filled up with ash, you could see all black pine needles, bits of bark that were burnt, it blocked out the sun,” Robin tells us. We also bring together volunteers in France, helping to provide food and shelter for people displaced from their homes.
What does it mean to inherit a faith that served as a fortress for your father, but feels like a contradiction to you? Throughout his childhood in Oxford, Silas Gray was surrounded by the sights, sounds, and symbols of his father’s Rastafarian identity. He was even named after the Rastafarian spiritual figurehead, Emperor Haile Selassie I.
But this legacy weighs heavily. It anchors him to a complex world leader he’s not sure he’s aligned with. And he feels like an imposter carrying a name associated with a faith he doesn’t practise.
Desperate to find a version of this legacy he can comfortably own, Silas decides to do what his father spent forty years dreaming of but never actually did: he books a flight to Ethiopia and travels to the Rastafarian spiritual motherland of Shashamane, the land granted to the global black diaspora by the Emperor himself.
Silas encounters a living, breathing community where three generations of Rastafarians exist under one roof.
This is a deeply personal pilgrimage about a son trying to see what his father sees, heal a generational disconnect, and finally make peace with his name.
The 1st of July 1916 is still one of the deadliest days in the history of warfare. Nearly 20,000 men from the British Army and 6,000 German soldiers were killed on the first day of the Battle of the Somme. The World War One battle would last another four months and was one of the first examples of industrial warfare; three million men fought in it, over a-million soldiers were wounded, missing or killed. Jordan Dunbar investigates how, 110 years on, the battle still affects people and communities, and discovers new insights about its impact on his own family and on the history of Ireland.
Ed Butler investigates how one of Europe’s most wanted drug smugglers, Jos Leijdekkers, ended up in Sierra Leone while evading justice.
He also explores reports linking Leijdekkers to the family of Sierra Leone’s president, including claims that he has married the president’s daughter.
for more programmes like this search Business Daily wherever you get your BBC Podcasts
Presenter/producer: Ed Butler
In Kenya, a young lawyer is bringing a legal case against the Kenyan government, regulator, and several multinational agrochemical companies.
He’s working alongside activists and health practitioners, and they claim that hazardous pesticides and herbicides, designed to make farming for efficient, are damaging the health of farmers in Kenya.
They are demanding changes to regulation, as well as increased education and compensation for people who they claim, have had their health severely affected by high exposure to these products.
For Assignment, Josephine Casserly travels to Kenya to follow lawyers, health practitioners and scientists as they face the challenges of gathering evidence to support their case.
The American artist James Turrell is famous for his Skyspaces. A Skyspace is chamber with an opening to the sky. Turrell bathes the roof with light that subtly changes colour, which affects our perception of the colour of the sky itself. Julian May travels to ARoS, the Art Museum in Aarhus, Denmark to meet James Turrell as he prepares his latest SkySpace, entitled As Seen Below – The Dome. It is a monumental work, which from the ground outside looks like tumulus, an ancient a grass covered burial mound. To experience the work Julian goes through an underground tunnel that brings him into the huge domed space flooded with changing coloured light. Through the opening the sky appears at once immensely deep, yet close.
James Turrell tells Julian that while most artists depict light, light is his material; his work is light itself. He speaks about how flying (he gained a pilot’s licence at the age of sixteen), the changing colours of the sky and the disorientating experience of speeding between clouds and fog inspires him. How, too, his upbringing and life as a Quaker has a profound influence.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from In the Studio, exploring the processes of the world’s most creative people.
Cars driven by Israeli volunteers wait at check points to give lifts to sick Palestinians to their hospital appointments - what the volunteers call “one hour of peace”. Since Hamas’s attacks on 7 October, it has become an increasingly rare space for Israelis and Palestinians to speak and build trust and connection amid the trauma of war. Most Palestinians from the occupied West Bank are prevented from travelling to Israel, among them patients in desperate need of specialised medical treatment. Some days there are more than 80 car rides, volunteer drivers, waiting at the checkpoint, by the separation barrier that divides Israel and the West Bank. Meanwhile in Gaza, patients who used to receive medical care in Israel are among around 20,000 patients on a long list awaiting medical evacuation. Jerusalem reporter Naomi Scherbel-Ball hears how they have survived more than two years of a devastating war, displaced from their homes and reliant on a health system all but destroyed by war. She also meets the Israeli volunteers, who had friends and family killed on 7 October. Despite the war, some have stayed in touch with the patients they used to drive from Gaza.
When it comes to conservation, adorable and majestic animals often attract the most concern for their plight. It's not so easy to get the public's attention when it comes to animals that are perceived as weird or creepy or downright unpleasant. The vulture, traditionally associated with death and carrion, falls into this unlucky group. Globally, around 70% of vultures are now under threat of extinction and Nigeria's vultures are no exception. BBC West Africa journalist Makuochi Okafor has been investigating this story.
In Vietnam, The Last Empress, a new film inspired by the life of the final empress of the Nguyen Dynasty, appears to be provoking a strong reaction. Nam Phuong is a well-known historical figure in Vietnam, who along with her husband, Bao Dai, she was also seen as a puppet of the French colonial regime. Since the release of the trailer for The Last Empress, this long debate in Vietnam has bubbled back to life. Duc Ha from the BBC's Bangkok bureau has been exploring the human story behind all the politics and controversy.
In a private party in a Russian town, Katya was about to blow out the candles on her 30th birthday cake when masked men burst into the nightclub that she had hired and began physically and verbally attacking her friends. The swoop was instigated by a vigilante group who want to accelerate President Vladimir Putin's promotion of what he sees as traditional Russian family values. As is sometimes the case in these raids, members of the town's police also joined them, shutting down the party and interrogating the guests. Amalia Zatari of BBC Russian has been looking into this vigilante group.
The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.
Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.
If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
It has been a month since the twin earthquakes in Venezuela, estimated to have killed more than five thousand people. But there have also been some remarkable stories of rescue with people being pulled alive from the rubble many days after the disaster.
In our conversations, we bring together people who survived disasters to discuss the long-term impact the events have had on their lives.
Marinel lived through Typhoon Haiyan, which hit the Philippines in 2013 and was one of the strongest typhoons in recorded history.
Jeff was a pupil at the junior school in Aberfan in South Wales. In 1966, 116 children were killed when waste from coal mines crashed down the mountainside engulfing his school.
“I did go to one counsellor and that counsellor said to me, when you review what you’ve been through, think of happy things like birthday parties,” Jeff tells us. “Well, the majority of people that would have come to my birthday party were now gone.”
We also bring together rescue workers to hear what motivates them and how they cope with confronting death and destruction.
This edition of The Documentary is from BBC Conversations where we bring people together to share their personal experiences of world events.
Presenter: James Reynolds
BBC producers: Ryan Keane, Lindsay Brown and Isabella Bull
Boffin Media producer: Richard Hollingham
Editors: Arja Haikonen and Harriet Oliver
A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC World Service Outside Source team.
When her mother dies, Rimi Tanaka regrets that she never truly got to know her. And so when her mother’s literary agent calls Rimi out of the blue, and asks her if she wants to write the book Akemi was writing when she died, Rimi seizes the opportunity. Akemi was researching her samurai ancestry, learning more about their philosophical code, and how it can teach us to live a fuller life today. Can completing her mother’s spiritual quest help Rimi finally come closer to someone she felt she never fully knew?
In 2014, Tonga had no national netball team, coach, squad, or training facilities. Determined to change that, former television news anchor Salote Sisifa became CEO of Tonga Netball and promised the board that within five years she would build a team capable of competing internationally and reaching the world’s top 10 by 2025. If she failed, she would resign. Alongside, Head Coach Jaqua Pori-Makea-Simpson, Salote propelled Tonga from 42nd to seveth in the world rankings navigating national disaster, the Covid-19 pandemic, and restricted resources along the way. This episode of The Documentary Podcast examines Tonga’s extraordinary journey and how they have become a formidable force on the international stage. Their next milestone is their Commonwealth Games debut in 2026.
Why I don’t hate the person who tried to kill me in Norway’s worst terror attack from a far-right extremist. Bjorn Ihler speaks to Lives Less Ordinary, the podcast from the BBC World Service that brings you the most incredible true stories from around the world. Fifteen years ago today, on 22 July 2011, Bjorn Ihler was a 20-year-old performing arts student and a member of the youth division of the Norwegian Labour Party. He participated in the Party's summer camp on Utøya island, about 35km from Norway's capital Oslo, when Norway suffered its worst terror attack in recent history. Anders Breivik was a far-right extremist who launched a bomb attack on government offices in Oslo. Two hours later he attacked the summer camp that Bjorn was attending. 77 people were killed that day – the majority on the island. Bjorn survived and helped save two young boys who were also on Utøya.
Just days after the incident Bjorn threw himself into trying to understand how someone could behave this way. Today, Bjorn is an expert in preventing radicalisation and extremism and alongside his wife co-founded the Khalifa Ihler Institute which promotes peace, human rights, and community.
Presenter: Jo Fidgen
For more extraordinary personal stories, search for Lives Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Children who are so obese they’re banned from their local gyms. Two and three year olds who are so used to juice and fizzy drinks they find it difficult to drink water. This is the child obesity epidemic hitting Italy. The country is often considered the spiritual home of the fabled mediterranean diet, celebrated as the secret to a long, healthy life. But Italy’s children are now the second most overweight in the EU. The reasons for this change in a generation are complex and hotly disputed. Experts are putting it down to a daily diet heavy in pasta, pizza, potatoes, bread and meat proteins. Parents say their teenage children are eating a family dinner then going out to binge on fast food. Others accuse the parents themselves of overindulging their children from an early age. Italy is acting. It recently became one of the first countries in the world to formally recognise obesity as a chronic disease. Twenty five secondary schools in the Campania region of Southern Italy, including Naples, will take part in an ambitious clinical trial to try and get their pupils to eat more healthily in a bid to prevent a looming health crisis. Can Italy turn its child obesity crisis around? And what lessons does its experiment hold for other countries struggling with the same problem? Sofia Bettiza reports from Naples.
Producer: Bob Howard
Sound engineer: James Beard
Production coordinator: Gemma Ashman
Editor: Penny Murphy
(Image: Medical assistant weighing young girl at the university hospital in Naples, Italy. Credit: Sofia Bettiza/BBC).
Can a trek become a work of art? As British artist and theatre-maker Tom Bailey starts his 600km on skis, Jo Morris tracks his progress through the borderlands of the Arctic where he encounters communities under threat from the climate crisis. As melting ice opens up new shipping routes, sparking debates over sovereignty Tom's ultra-slow journey will also examine the future of cultural tourism.
Set against the backdrop of one of the world’s toughest child protection laws, Brishbhanu Baruah explores how India’s landmark Protection of Children from Sexual Offences Act (Pocso) is reshaping the lives of young people. Introduced after the 2012 Delhi gang rape, Pocso has been praised for exposing hidden abuse, trafficking, and child marriage. But as reported cases surge into the tens of thousands each year, a growing number involve teenagers in consensual relationships who now face investigation, trial, and the possibility of long prison terms. Through testimony from lawyers, campaigners, families, and young people themselves, he examines how a law designed to protect children can also criminalise young couples, strain families, and devastate education and career prospects.
In Belarus, new legislation from the government of President Alexander Lukashenko targets anyone who might be regarded as an opponent with charges of being ‘extremist’. Dozens of independent media outlets including the BBC have recently been designated as ‘extremist organisation’ in the country, as the government cracks down on dissent. But the Belarus government isn’t only targeting media outlets. It’s taking aim at a wide variety of groups and organisations, including a well-respected Belarus university, the European Humanities University, which since 2005 has been based in the apparent safety of Lithuania. But recently, students, staff and their families have begun to be visited by Belarus's security service, the KGB. BBC Russian's Alina Isachenka has been investigating.
The custom of men being married to more than one person at the same time, known as polygamy, is practiced in many parts of the world, particularly across the African continent. It's traditionally rooted in cultural, social, and economic values across various tribes in different regions, such as the Zulu in South Africa, a country where polygamous marriage is legally recognised. Now, a new hit Zulu language TV series, The Polygamist, has got people discussing the topic. BBC Africa reporter Khanisile Nkobho has been following the issue.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Over the past five decades, it is estimated that around 13 million babies have been conceived thanks to IVF. The fertility treatment has helped families around the world have children. But new research suggests that older women face a significantly lower chance of conceiving, even when donor eggs are used from a younger woman. This challenges the idea that donor eggs can “reset” an individual’s reproductive clock. We bring together three women to share their experiences of the physical challenges and heartbreak of unsuccessful IVF treatment. Dee remembers a sense of isolation and Lana experienced not just sadness, but guilt for other people in her life. We also hear from doctors on evolving attitudes to IVF treatment and the options available to fertility patients in their countries.
Harry Haft was forced to fight in more than 70 death matches inside Nazi concentration camps - not against soldiers but against other prisoners. After the war, Harry carried that violence into America’s boxing rings, facing some of the era’s top fighters. Through the eyes of his son Alan, this documentary reveals the deeper cost of survival - a legacy shaped by trauma, rage, and the loss of faith that followed him long after the fighting ended.
Why have US beef prices risen around 13% over the past year? Who is making money from the burgers and steaks Americans eat? Presenter Sam Fenwick speaks to a cattle rancher in South Dakota, an agricultural economist in Wisconsin, a meat packer in North Carolina and a restaurant owner in Nebraska to find out what is happening in this quintessentially American corner of the food market. We unpack the US beef supply chain to discover why prices are rising, who is making money from it and who is getting squeezed.
“Perfidious Albion” - how Britain replaced the US as Russia’s top nemesis and the villain at the heart of its war narrative. Since the re-election of Donald Trump, Russian propagandists have softened their tone on the US, while intensifying their rhetoric against the UK. They have unleashed a wave of elaborate insults, accusations and threats against Britain, amounting at times to a full-blown character assassination. The insults may sound theatrical, and London denies the accusations, but beneath them lies a more troubling signal - one UK military chiefs take seriously. We ask, what does this shift reveal about Russia’s strategic intentions in a time of conflict.
In March this year, 25-year-old Noelia Castillo died by lethal injection. Her father had fought in the courts for nearly two years to stop her euthanasia. Noelia applied for assisted dying because she had been left paraplegic, debilitated and in pain after a suicide attempt. Her case dominated Spain’s headlines for months. And the debate about who has the right to challenge an adult’s decision to have euthanasia has not gone away. In May, the Supreme Court ruled that those with, ‘a particularly close connection’ to the person wanting to die may have the right to contest an application for euthanasia.
But there are families unsettled by the Supreme Court’s ruling. When Puri and Salvador’s daughter, Ana, chose assisted dying at the age of 28 they didn’t think about intervening in her decision,…because she was an adult, because she was independent,” says Puri. Ana had been born with Spina Bifida and became increasingly unwell with neuropathic pain that is difficult to treat.
Something that gave Puri and Salvador immense comfort after they lost their daughter was the knowledge that Ana’s organs were donated (with Ana’s permission) to keep others alive. And it’s the issue of organ donation that is helping to keep the euthanasia story in the news in Spain. Noelia’s mother, Yolanda Ramos, claims her daughter was under pressure to commit to donating her organs. And the anti-euthanasia Foundation of Christian Lawyers in Spain (Fundacion Espanola de Abogados Cristianos) that has represented both of Noelia’s parents is advocating a ban on organ donation in euthanasia cases. Why does this matter?
The BBC investigates Zhang Zhidong, also known as “Brother Wang”, a Chinese national described by US law enforcement as one of the most significant drug traffickers in the world.
He is now awaiting trial in the US and has pleaded not guilty. He is accused of building a criminal empire connecting China's chemical factories to the Mexican cartels flooding the US with fentanyl.
The BBC investigates his rise and fall, speaking to his former friend, and to cartel members who knew him as “number one” and the "king of fentanyl”.
Jordanian director Zain Duraie talks about her debut film Sink, an intense family drama about a mother coping with her son's mental health issues. Zain reveals the severe difficulties she faced to get the film financed, why she sought out the advice of other directors and how the film Titanic changed her life. And she offers her own tips for would-be film-makers.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from In the Studio, exploring the processes of the world’s most creative people.
If you’ve been affected by issues raised in this programme, you may want to speak to a health professional or an organisation that offers support.
The Atemoya Custard Apple is a much sought-after fruit grown only in one county in Taiwan. The Taiwanese are justly proud of it. Meanwhile, the Musang King Durian - grown in Malaysia - is also highly prized for its unique flavour as the ‘Hermes of Durians.’ Every year, fruit lovers across the region look out for these treats and snap them up where they can, often paying high prices. In recent years, farmers have seen opportunities to raise their income by selling these niche, super-luxury fruits on the Chinese market, but the strategy comes with big risks too. Koh Ewe from the BBC’s Singapore Bureau has been tracking the fortunes of these two fruits.
A statue of Saint Olga is a much-loved figure in Central Kyiv, Ukraine. So much so, that when Russia invaded Ukraine, the statue was given a flak jacket with the words “she needs armour” written on it. Saint Olga of Kyiv is celebrated by Ukrainians and Russians alike. She’s a saint in both the Catholic and Orthodox churches and her saint’s day is celebrated on 11th July. BBC Ukrainian’s Irena Taranyuk explores her sometimes violent history.
The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.
Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.
If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
In a summer of world class sporting events, tennis players have been battling it out at Wimbledon - one of the four major Grand Slam tournaments. One of the big stories has been the success of British wildcard entry Arthur Fery who, before Wimbledon, was ranked outside the top 100. His success has come with a big jump in prize money - essential to pay for the international travel, accommodation and coaches required to keep climbing the rankings. For those lower down the ranks, life on the professional circuit can be tough both emotionally and financially. Hamish Stewart, from Scotland, is currently ranked 300 and is all too aware of the personal demands of the job. "I've just missed an ex-college teammate of mine's wedding," says Stewart. He is joined by Jamie Loeb from the US, who is currently ranked outside the top 1,000. She had a career high of 132 and played in the US Open before injury and personal circumstances stalled her rise. We also hear from three coaches - Viktoria Belinsky, Noelle van Lottum and Michael Logarzo - who give us an insight into their jobs, the sport and its parallels with life.
In coastal Japan, Yasuo Takamatsu has spent nearly 15 years diving for the remains of his wife, Yuko, who was swept away in the 2011 tsunami. With on-location recording of Yasuo on his 763rd dive, this Heart and Soul documentary explores his search as an act of devotion shaped by Japanese ideals of grief, memory, and the power of nature. A profound story of love and loss, we reveal how one man’s repeated dives became a ritual of remembrance in a land where disaster is part of life.
Presenter: Jake Warren
Producer:: Leo Danczak
Editor:: Macalister Bexon
A Message Heard production for BBC World Service
Once a quiet hobby for enthusiasts, ant-keeping has exploded into a global, multi-million-dollar business driven by social media and a rising wave of "ant-influencers". Demand for exotic species is fuelling a boom in online trading forums, and a new front in wildlife trafficking. We go to Kenya, where law enforcement has made global headlines arresting gangs as they try to smuggle thousands of prized mated queens out of the country.
As the United States approaches its 250th anniversary, all this week The Global Story is exploring the surprising and often hidden ways the US has shaped the modern world.
For decades in the US, “Made in China” signified a product that was cheap, poorly made, and, in some cases, produced through exploitative labour. But today, the label signifies something quite different in many American minds - state-of-the-art tech and luxury goods that even rival America, for arguably the first time in US history.
Often overlooked is the fact that China’s ascendance as an economic superpower was far from inevitable. Today we speak to historian Elizabeth Ingleson to trace the evolution of the Made in China brand and to explore what responsibility the United States had for awakening its own economic rival.
The Global Story tells in-depth stories from where the world and America meet. For more episodes, just search 'The Global Story' wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.
Producer: Xandra Ellin and Sam Chantarasak
Executive producer: James Shield
Sound engineer: Travis Evans
Senior news editor: China Collins
Worried about a ballooning population, the Chinese government introduced its infamous one-child policy in 1980. At the time it seemed urgent to find ways to reduce the number of babies being born. China today has the opposite problem - too few births. Since the one-child policy was scrapped 10 years ago, there have been increasingly desperate attempts to encourage couples to have more children. But nothing has worked. China’s population has already started to fall. That process will gather pace over the coming decades. The population is on track to halve by the end of the century. Micky Bristow, who has reported on China over more than 20 years, looks at why this is happening, and what the consequences could be.
From her secluded mountain cabin in the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia, USA, best-selling author Karin Slaughter crafts stories which keep millions awake at night. She tells Lucy Collingwood how she works best – at her bespoke ‘cockpit’ desk, a couple of intense weeks at a time, where she juggles the tv-adaptation of her book The Good Daughter and her latest thriller The Secrets We Hide.
100 Objects #1: The Century Safe In 1876, Americans filled an iron safe with objects meant to tell their story — to be opened a century later. Roman Mars and historian Jill Lepore trace its long wait, from Reconstruction to Watergate, and the surprising, unsettling contents that emerged in 1976. What do the objects we choose to preserve — or forget — reveal about how we author our own history? Host: Roman Mars Producers: Priscilla Alabi, Brenna Daldorph, Isaac Fisher, Ellie Lightfoot EPs: Annie Brown, Courtney Harrell, Kathy Tu
When Dr. Mahrang Baloch was a teenager, she joined hundreds of families across Pakistan's southwestern province of Balochistan to search for her father, who had disappeared. Activists and rights groups say thousands of ethnic Baloch people have disappeared over the past two decades, alleging many were detained by security forces, tortured and killed as part of operations against a long-running separatist movement. After three years of being missing, Mahrang's family received a call telling them that her father's body had been found. This led Mahrang herself becoming a campaigner, leading protests and marches demanding information about missing persons in Balochistan. But last year she was arrested and she has now been sentenced to life in prison. Farhat Javed of BBC Urdu tells her story.
As the group stage of the World Cup comes to a close, Cape Verde, a tiny nation off the coast of West Africa, is celebrating a remarkable achievement. It's their first ever time at the tournament, but the Blue Sharks, as their team is known, have made it out of the group stage with a series of strong performances where they have held big teams like Spain and Uruguay to account. Meanwhile, in South Korea, a much more seasoned squad packed with international talent have arrived home in defeat after losing to teams their critics feel they should have beaten. The fallout has been painful. Paul Njie, journalist with BBC West Africa and Jake Kwon, Seoul Correspondent for BBC News, reflect.
The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.
Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.
If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Irena Taranyuk.
Produced by Laura Thomas, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
The people of Venezuela are still reeling from the aftermath of two powerful earthquakes which struck near the capital Caracas in June.
As buildings collapsed, the impact was devastating. Over two and a half thousand are recorded dead but, with tens of thousands of people still missing, the final number will be much higher.
We hear from people who were in Caracas and the nearby port of La Guaira - one of the worst affected areas.
Some have been made homeless. Some are students, who were about to graduate and are now mourning the loss of friends. Some, like Gonzalo, are continuing to search for those who are still trapped beneath collapsed buildings.
While rescue teams have arrived from all over the world, Gonzalo is dismayed at the shortage of aid from his own government.
"As Venezuelans right now we cannot afford to stop and process. We are stuck in the loop of helping, helping, helping, helping, helping. We have to get each other out, we have to get each other out, which is a beautiful thing," said Gonzalo.
"But the painful thing is that it's just a sign of how alone we are. How destroyed the network of this country is and that is the most desolating part of it all."
Host: James Reynolds
BBC producers: Iqra Farooq and Ryan Keane.
Boffin Media producer: Sue Nelson
Editors: Harriet Oliver and Arja Haikonen
An EcoAudio certified Boffin Media production in partnership with the OS team.
Once a respected voice in the pulpit, a Nigerian priest was cast out when his sexuality became known, mirroring a broader pattern in which clergy have been dismissed or barred from ministry in Nigeria over allegations of homosexuality. Listening to his intimate testimony and stark reality, Emily Buchanan explores the cost of authenticity in a society where belief, culture, and law intersect - and where being true to oneself can mean losing everything.
Our bodies are filled with bacteria that have rich social lives and, just like people, these microbial neighbours and families do not always get along. In some cases, it is the bacterial equivalent of The Sopranos. Dr Sally Le Page delves into the bacterial dramas of loners, crowd-lovers, backstabbers and do-gooders that are fighting it out in the world and inside our bodies. Co-operation, cheating and selfish behaviour can all lead to benefits or disease so scientists are studying this behaviour to help produce new medicines and clean up our environment.
Running a restaurant is hard. Long hours, tight margins and constant stress. In this episode of the Food Chain, Rumella Dasgupta travels to Edinburgh, Scotland, to meet Lisa He and her mum Sophie. Lisa has just put her life and acting career on hold, to try and help her mum save the family's restaurant, the China Star. A video she made documenting her attempt has gone viral, with more than fifteen million views.
But is a viral video going to be enough to turn a failing business into a success? Lisa's got to fix the sprawling menu, digitise the paper ordering system and cut costs.
Lisa and Rumella meet restaurant turnaround expert David Hopkins from the Fifteen Group in Canada, who's on hand to give advice and to explain why restaurants are such difficult businesses to run.
Meanwhile the Mand family in Sydney Australia know only too well what Lisa and Sophie are going through. Last year, son Bhav documented his fight to save his dad's failing restaurant. So how's it doing now?
And, in such a difficult industry, when is the right time to walk away? Rumella hears from Carleigh Bond, who made the tough decision to close her vegan fast-food restaurant Forked Up in October 2025.
The Food Chain examines the business, science and cultural significance of food, and what it takes to put food on your plate. To hear more, search The Food Chain wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Switzerland recently voted on a radical and unprecedented initiative: capping the country’s population to limit migration. It is the latest in a series of referendums around immigration policy in Switzerland, which have spanned decades. In the weeks preceding the vote, Josephine Casserly was in Switzerland to speaking to the people championing this policy to understand why concerns about immigration have grown so strong in this small, wealthy country, famed for its neutrality.
In the Studio enters the creative world of award-winning Irish-language poet Ailbhe Ní Ghearbhuigh as she composes a new poem. We follow its journey from first draft to first public reading. Ailbhe writes exclusively in Irish. She is deeply rooted in the language’s literary tradition yet unmistakably modern in outlook and has become one of the most distinctive literary voices of her generation. Working from the early-morning quiet of her kitchen table in Cork, the documentary centres on a new triptych inspired by her nine-year-old daughter’s fascination with Greek mythology. Ailbhe takes Dualtagh Herr behind the scenes of her new work, reflecting on childhood imagination, motherhood, and the creative process.
In a programme examining the origins and tracing the history of the Middle East conflict, presenter Jonny Dymond is joined by Lloyd Llewellyn-Jones, professor in ancient history at Cardiff University, and historian and author Simon Sebag Montefiore, author of Jerusalem: The Biography. They discuss the value of the Bible as a guide to history, the concept of a “promised land”, the archaeological record of the various peoples who lived in the region in ancient times, the coming of the Romans, and the Jewish revolts against them in the first and second centuries AD.
Every World Cup has its stand‑out personalities and talking points. This year, fans have been as delighted by Lionel Messi’s performance in the tournament, his sixth World Cup, and by the stand‑out style of DR Congo superfan Lumumba Vea, as they have been sometimes baffled by hydration breaks. But only a handful of moments are remembered throughout the decades. In 1986 in Mexico City, Diego Maradona scored two goals for Argentina in a match against England that will never be forgotten. World Service News editor Lourdes Heredia, it turns out, was there and witnessed what Maradona would go on to call his 'Hand of God' goal.
A few weeks ago in Afghanistan, in the western city of Herat, people took to the streets in a rare protest after local Taliban government officials reportedly began arresting women perceived to be “improperly wearing the hijab." Since the Taliban returned to power in 2021, women’s rights have been restricted more and more. Women are no longer allowed to go to secondary school or university, beauty parlours have been banned, travel restrictions have been put in place dictating how far women can travel from home, and women have been ordered not to speak when out in public. Mahjooba Nowrouzi and Mamoon Durrani of BBC Afghan have been reporting on these protests and looking into Taliban leadership.
The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.
Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.
If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas and Caroline Ferguson
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
As Norway’s crown princess, Mette-Marit, convalesces from lung transplant surgery, we bring together patients and doctors to share their experiences of this major life-saving procedure. Since the 1980s, lung transplantations have become increasingly routine, but as every operation relies on suitable donor organs becoming available, the timing is always uncertain.
“Everything was so quick, everything was so scary,” says Aimee Morrison, who received her new lungs last year, only months after being told she had a chronic degenerative condition, “You don’t really get an opportunity to think about what’s happening … 10-12 hr surgery, unknown results, what’s going to happen afterwards…” As we hear, Aimee’s story was particularly dramatic as only a week before her operation she had given birth to her daughter.
Lung transplant patients require life-long aftercare from physicians like Dr Vicky Gerovasili, as their condition will always eventually deteriorate. “That can be very emotionally stressful,” she says,”but it's also very rewarding because we are becoming part of their life and their family. I sign off patients to go scuba diving, travel the world and that's fantastic to see.”
Sitting on his grandad’s knee, a young Bhavik Haria was introduced to devotional Hindu music. Since childhood, he’s been hooked on the moving instruments and tales of gods and deities. Fast forward to his late 20s – and it was during the Covid pandemic that Bhavik realised how the landscape was changing in his community. Young people were no longer engaging with these bhajans. The instruments and sound were just not resonating. A trend began in India of bhajan jams – incorporating Western instruments to devotional music that appealed to all ages. We follow Bhavik from London to Ahmedabad, on his mission to keep bhajans alive by appealing to all ages through fusion music. And we find out why bhajan jams are helping the Hindu diaspora feel connected to their cultural and religious roots.
As the knockout stage of the men’s World Cup in Canada, Mexico and the USA draws closer, so too does the dreaded penalty shootout. Why do penalties bring so much drama and anxiety to both players and fans when they are used to decide tied games in knockout football? Former South African captain Amanda Dlamini looks back at the history of the shootout with penalty expert and author Ben Lyttleton. South African internationals Nomathemba Ntsibande and Gabriela Moodaly‑Salgado take us through their penalty routines, while West Ham United Women’s sport psychologist Dr Adrienn Szabadics explains the psychology behind the penalty shootout.
We hear from 1999 Women’s World Cup winner Brandi Chastain about her winning penalty at that tournament.
The coach of Amanda’s former club JVW, in Johannesburg, Alexia Cassar, tells us about the role coaches play in preparing for shootouts.
Finally, commentator Andrés Cantor reminisces about the 2022 World Cup final, while South Africa goalkeeper and captain Ronwen Williams, who is playing in this year’s World Cup, gives us an insight into how he once saved four out of five penalties in a single shootout.
It is 10 years since the UK voted to leave the European Union in the Brexit referendum. In this two-part series, Alex Forsyth, a BBC correspondent who’s covered Brexit from both Brussels and Westminster, looks at what impact the decision to leave the EU has had on various aspects of public and political life, both within Britain and beyond.
In this second episode, Alex and guests discuss how leaving the EU impacted UK regulation, science and academia, and fishing and farming, and consider how Brexit has impacted the EU and British internal politics ten years on. Did Brexit allow the UK to free itself from the ‘burdensome bureaucracy’ of the EU and innovate independently, or leave it out of the loop? Did UK fishers and farmers get a better deal post Brexit? Were there fears the UK’s departure would trigger a domino effect amongst other European nations? And has Brexit ultimately made UK politics more European?
It is 10 years since the UK voted to leave the European Union in the Brexit referendum. In this two-part series, Alex Forsyth, a BBC correspondent who’s covered Brexit from both Brussels and Westminster, looks at what impact the decision to leave the EU has had on various aspects of public and political life, both within Britain and beyond.
In the first episode, Alex and guests discuss Brexit's effect on the UK economy, trade, and immigration, and how the referendum result impacted Northern Ireland, Scotland, and Wales. Did Brexit encourage the trade boom that the Leave campaign promised? Was the UK able to ‘take back control’ of its borders? And has Brexit poured fuel on the fire of the independence movements in the devolved nations?
Sean Cooney is a powerful voice in British folk music and theatre. Winner of 3 BBC Radio 2 Folk Awards with his band the Young'uns, the creator, musical director, lyricist, composer, and book writer has made 9 albums, recorded a number of radio programmes and is behind the acclaimed international theatre show, The Ballad of Johnny Longstaff. His work brings untold working-class stories to life by blending folk song, historical testimony, archival recordings, and spoken word.
Tom Raine follows his creative process as he works on a brand new album, this time not inspired by amazing people, but amazing dogs. Having just retired his wife’s guide dog Nessie after 8 and a half years of service, Sean has been inspired to craft a new set of songs about history’s heroic hounds - the dogs that have been more than just companions, but life savers, including the legendary Rollo who saved a baby during the Great Sheffield Flood of 1864. It all culminates in a dog friendly concert in one of the many locations where the stories took place.
This unique BBC radio programme is aimed at just a few dozen listeners: The team of scientists and support staff isolated at British research stations in the Antarctic midwinter.
Hosted by Cerys Matthews, the show features messages from family and friends at home as well as music requests from Antarctica. For decades it has been part of the traditional midwinter celebrations and, since 2020, it’s been enjoyed by listeners around the world.
Midwinter celebrations at the British research stations include a feast, exchange of presents, watching the 1982 horror film The Thing (where an alien monster terrorises an Antarctic base) and listening - on short wave - to the BBC’s Midwinter Broadcast.
A Boffin Media Production for BBC World Service
Disabled people are the most unfairly treated minority in Germany, according to one former member of parliament. This is especially true in the world of work. The unemployment rate among disabled people is twice that of people with no disability. When they do find work, it’s often in an institution where they are paid less than the minimum wage and where they do not have the usual rights and protections enjoyed by most employed people. Yet they are often producing goods for big companies with well-known brand names. Amy Zayed, one of very few disabled journalists working in Germany, asks what can be done to make Germany more inclusive.
At the beginning of June a clean-up crew on Mount Everest were clearing abandoned tents and rubbish, when they saw a man in the distance, completely alone, sliding down the mountain towards base camp. The man was Hilary Dawa Sherpa. He had been missing for 6 days and his family, convinced that he had died, had already started doing last rites for him. Nearly every person who climbs Mount Everest depends on a member of the Sherpa community to guide them up the mountain, carry belongings and set up camps. So why was HIlary Dawa Sherpa left behind? Kamal Pariyar of BBC Nepali spoke to Hilary Dawa Sherpa about his miraculous survival. BBC World Service Global Environment correspondent Navin Singh Khadka is also from Nepal and has reported on many issues to do with tourism on Mount Everest.
In May, in a town north-western Peru, a group of Catholic priests knelt and publicly asked forgiveness from descendants of the indigenous Tallàn community. The scene, captured on video, shows a group of priests in robes addressing the representatives of the community before stepping down to be among them and kneeling. Isabel Caro from BBC Mundo tells the story of the struggle behind this gesture.
The Fifth Floor is at the heart of global storytelling on the BBC World Service, bringing you the best stories from journalists in the BBC's 43 language services. We're here to help you make sense of the stories making headlines around the world; to excite your curiosity and to get to grips with the facts.
Recent episodes have investigated Russia’s youth armies and how they make soldiers of Ukrainian children; featured the BBC team who were the first journalists to the site of the Nigerian school kidnappings and reflected the effects of internet blackouts in Iran, Uganda and India.
If you want to know more about Venezuela’s acting president, Delcy Rodriguez, and the legacy of Hugo Chavez; or how Vladimir Putin’s network of deep cover spies operates; or why Donald Trump signed an executive order granting white South Africans asylum in the US, we have all those stories and more.
Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Laura Thomas and Caroline Ferguson
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
During the Brazilian military dictatorship, the Krenak indigenous people were banned from speaking their language, imprisoned in reformatories and forcibly displaced from their land. In 2024, the State asked them for forgiveness. Can it be granted?
Journalist Pūlama Kaufman travels to the remote city of Resplendor in the south-east of Brazil to meet up with Brazilian environmental journalist, Cristina Serra. Together, they are welcomed into the Krenak Indigenous territory where they speak with Karnak elders, philosophers and community leaders.
The Documentary uncovers the many layers to what Brazilian Civil Prosecutor Edmundo Dias calls an intentional, “genocide” of the Krenak, lead by Brazilian federal agencies. For decades, very little was known about what the Krenak suffered during the dictatorship, but now they are speaking out. And in 2024, the Amnesty Commission made its first ever apology to an Indigenous group when the president of the Commission got down on her knees in front of the Krenak.
India is known for its close knit families and communities, but modern work practices mean more and more people are living far from home, and suffering from loneliness. Reporter Sumedha Pal in Dehli shares the stories of some of the people in India who are trying to find creative solutions to connect with others.
Animated film 'K-pop Demon Hunters' has topped streaming and music charts globally, pitting a demon hunter girl-group Huntrx against a would be soul-stealing boy band, Saja Boys. It's an English language film, but Koreans have taken the protagonists to heart, as BBC Korean Yuna Ku reports.
Plus, why do mosques in Kashmir have such a distinctive look? We discuss with Aliya Nazki from BBC Urdu.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi
This is an EcoAudio certified production.
President Donald Trump recently addressed what he described as the “horrible crisis” in autism, and rapid rise in reported cases over the last two decades. Previously, he has suggested a link between some vaccines and autism, and in his latest remarks, he warned pregnant women to avoid taking the painkiller Tylenol, or Paracetamol as it is known in many countries. Scientists around the world have condemned his remarks. They say the rise in reported cases of autism is due to increased understanding and diagnoses, and that there is no evidence to show that autism is caused by painkillers or vaccines. We speak to autistic people and the parents of autistic children to discuss their reactions to President Trump’s comments.
After two long years President Trump has announced a ceasefire agreement which should see the remaining hostages returned home in exchange for the release of Palestinian prisoners. How have the families of Israeli hostages and their loved ones, held captive in dark tunnels for hundreds of days, managed to hold onto hope? Do people deepen their faith during periods of immense suffering, or turn away from religion? For this edition of Heart and Soul, Naomi Scherbel-Ball explores how, two years on since the October 7th attacks, hostages and their families see their lives and their faith. Many of those held hostage in Gaza come from the kibbutzim, largely secular communities that border Gaza, or were taken from the Nova music festival. Some of those released have spoken about reconnecting with their Jewish faith, with one female hostage even translating her prayers into Arabic so she would be allowed to continue to pray by her captors. Others speak of the strength they found in their family, the kibbutzim movement and community. 65-year-old American-Israeli Keith Siegel, who was kidnapped with his wife Aviva, explains how his connection to Judaism deepened during nearly 500 days in captivity. On his release, his daughter asked what he would like for their first family shabbat meal together after nearly 500 days. “What I want most is a kippah and a kiddush cup”, he answered, referring to the head covering worn by observant Jewish men and the symbolic cup that is held during the Friday night blessing in Judaism. Now back with his family in Israel, he says his heart is not whole until the remaining hostages return.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world
Produced and Presented by Naomi Scherbel-Ball
Executive Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Editor: Chloe Walker
Frank McWeeny heads to the dancefloors of Saigon (Ho Chi Minh City) to uncover what Vietnamese alternative culture looks and sounds like today. With 70% of the country under 35, young people are the driving force behind a different image of Vietnam, far away from poverty and war. They are asserting their identity through music, fashion and their own take on traditional values. They are changing perceptions of what it means to be Vietnamese in 2025.
We hear from DIY music collective Dismal, forward-thinking underground club The Observatory, and members of the nightlife and fashion scenes.
Producer/presenter: Frank McWeeny
Editor: Susan Marling
A Just Radio production
We have identified seven members of an anti-Islamic biker gang who oversaw security teams at aid sites for starving Palestinians, run by the controversial Gaza Humanitarian Foundation. Correspondent Andy Verity unearths who they are, what they believe and how their ideology may have fuelled their trips to Gaza.
Presenter: Andy Verity
Producers: Reha Kansara, Tom Beal and William Dahlgreen
Editors: Flora Carmichael and Anisa Subedar
With their pleated skirts and bowler hats the “cholita” women are a common sight in Bolivia’s administrative capital La Paz. They’re often from indigenous Aymara and Quechua cultures. Until recently cholita was used as a derogatory term to talk about their distinctive traditional clothing and they were discriminated against.
Jane Chambers travels to Bolivia to find out how these women are reclaiming their cultural heritage and going from outcasts to icons and what it says about society. Join her to meet the cholita wrestlers, fashion designers and mountaineers changing public opinion.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
After growing up in the north of England British milliner Stephen Jones went on to become a pioneering British hat maker working in Paris. He has been creating avant-garde designs for the last 45 years, inspired by Surrealist art, trailblazing fashions at New Romantic club nights, and cinema. He was friends with pop star Boy George who wore his hats, and he famously created a tweed crown for Vivienne Westwood. Rather than a mere accessory, he aims to transform a hat into a statement of identity, and has collaborated with designers like Jean Paul Gaultier and Dior, helping to revitalise fine hat-making skills inspired by looks from copies of Vogue from the 1940s, 50s and 60s. The prestigious Palais Galliera fashion museum in Paris holds exhibitions every year, showcasing how fashion has evolved from the 18th century to the present day. Its focus is on the most iconic designers and Stephen Jones is one of only two hat makers ever to be included – a huge honour. Rosa Johnston-Flint joins Stephen in Paris as his retrospective is about to close and visits his workshop as he prepares his Spring-Summer 2026 collection for London Fashion Week.
The narratives and the doctrines built on ever-growing suspicions and fears that are once again stirring the Middle East. Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has not just threatened to redraw the map of Europe - it has transformed the global security landscape. The ripple effects have been felt way beyond the continent, reigniting fears not felt since the Cold War - of a new nuclear arms race. In this episode we go back to the beginnings of nuclear ambitions in the Middle East to weigh up the consequences for the world today. With contributions from Barry Sadid, Shaina Oppenheimer, Florence Dixon, and Nihan Kale.
Pavel Zarubin has access to President Putin that other journalists can only dream of. He interviews him regularly, and travels around the world covering huge geopolitical meetings, even posting to his vast social media audience from Putin's meetings with Donald Trump, Xi Jinping, and even from under the table of Putin's meeting with Kim Jong Un. BBC Russian's Elizaveta Fokht traces his career from truth seeking young reporter, to being the President's favoured journalist.
Sana Mir is one of Pakistan’s most famous cricket players. She played for her country in 226 matches, captaining the team in 137 of them. Being a woman in cricket in Pakistan was not always easy for her, but she has been very outspoken about the sexism and body shaming she faced as a professional athlete. She recently was the first Pakistani woman to be inducted into the International Cricket Council’s hall of fame, and Nazish Fiaz of BBC Urdu went to interview her.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi
Produced by Rebecca Moore and Caroline Ferguson
We look back over the past 12 months of the conflict between Israel and Hamas through the conversations we have recorded. It is almost two years since Hamas militants attacked Israel – killing 1200 people and taking 251 hostage. In response, the Israeli government vowed to destroy Hamas. Since then – according to the Hamas-run health ministry – more than 60,000 people have been killed in air and ground attacks, the United Nations says that most of the population has had to leave their homes, and half a million are facing starvation. Throughout the conflict, we have spoken to families of those killed by Hamas or taken hostage. One of our producers, Kristina, has also been receiving regular voice notes from 17-year-old Sanabel in Gaza. “October 7th is what I hate the most,” Sanabel says. “Because of this date, I lost everything in my life, literally everything.”
This programme contains discriminatory language On Greece’s Mount Athos, the most holy site in Eastern Orthodox Christianity, lies a rift in the faith. For more than 20 years, a banned monastery has operated illegally and at times violently towards their sacred community. Nikos Papanikolaou visits these excommunicated monks ready to become martyrs in order to protect their ultra-orthodox way of life. The inhabitants of Esphigmenou monastery are known as Greece’s "rebel monks". Living on a remote peninsula in the north of the country, they are holed up in their fortress-like monastery, emblazoned with a banner reading "Orthodoxy or Death". This schismatic brotherhood broke away from the mainstream church decades ago, an act which has led to their excommunication and violent clashes with police after attempts to evict them from their monastery. Nikos Papanikolaou travels to Mount Athos to meet Esphigmenou’s leader, Abbot Methodios.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.
According to the World Bank, more than 80 million people in Nigeria still lack access to electricity, making it the country with the largest energy access deficit in the world. But even among those connected to the grid, many struggle daily to keep the power going. Blackouts are frequent, infrastructure is fragile, and generators have become a lifeline for homes and businesses alike. Journalist and presenter Samuel Okocha hears from Nigerians about how unreliable electricity affects their lives. He speaks to economists, politicians, and renewable energy experts to understand the roots of the crisis, and how decentralisation and power theft are complicating efforts to fix it. In Abuja, Samuel visits his local dry cleaner and barber to see how they are coping with constant outages. Samuel also finds resilience. Across Nigeria, people are turning to solar energy and small-scale solutions, building their own systems to meet their needs.
A growing industry of content creators is teaching people how to make money from AI models, promising quick profits. Their strategy: steal content, alter faces with AI, and funnel users from Instagram to adult platforms. And one trend has caught the internet’s attention - Down’s Syndrome deepfakes. Rowan Ings and Nathalie Jimenez dive into the growing world of AI deepfakes, how it works, and hear from victims about the human cost of turning AI into a business of exploitation.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from BBC Trending in-depth reporting on the world of social media.
How Haitians in the Dominican Republic are being targeted for expulsion.
The Dominican Republic is the Caribbean’s number one tourist destination. Last year 11 million visitors came here, many enjoying the five star resorts that skirt the island’s coast.
Much of the construction work building those tourist facilities is in fact done by Haitians, and many of the staff who work in them are from Haiti, which occupies the western half of this island of Hispaniola. Over recent years the tourism industry has helped make the Dominican economy the fastest growing in Latin America.
However, the Dominican government is now implementing one of the most systematic deportation policies anywhere in the world. Last year the president, Luis Abinader, announced that his country would expel illegal migrants at the rate of ten thousand a week. The chief target is Haitians and people of Haitian descent. President Abinader says he is keeping his country secure and implementing the constitution. Meanwhile Haitians in the Dominican Republic are living in fear of raids by the immigration authorities and of being sent back across the border, to a country riven by violence as well as political and economic instability.
John Murphy is in the Dominican Republic to talk to Haitians stuck between a rock and a hard place.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
Inspiration for Emilia Wickstead’s luxury fashion brand comes from her childhood home in New Zealand, her adolescence in Italy’s most fashionable city Milan, but also from her hard-working fashion designer mother. Her feminine silhouettes and creative use of colour and textiles have made her a popular choice among members of the British Royal Family and Hollywood celebrities. Belinda Naylor has had a sneak preview of how Emilia’s Spring/Summer 2026 collection has taken shape – referencing the romance of bygone eras with a contemporary twist. Emilia explains the importance of teamwork, being a perfectionist and how she still gets a thrill from seeing women wear the designs from her own label, which she established in 2008.
Can Apple cut ties with China? Apple is promising to make more products in the US, backed by a $600bn investment over the next four years. But after decades of relying on Chinese manufacturing that promise is going to be tough to keep. We’re joined by journalist and author Patrick McGee. With hosts in Washington DC and London, The Global Story tells the intertwined story of America and the world.
What happens when social media influencers join forces with politicians to promote their messages? Around the world political parties are switching from mainstream media to influencers to amplify their voices, in some cases even putting them on the official government payrolls. To find out what impact this is having on politics we've brought together Luis Fajardo from BBC Monitoring in Miami, who's examined the impact in Latin America, Famega Syavira, head of social media for BBC Indonesian, and Adline Okere, Igbo News Editor in Lagos, Nigeria.
The ‘Jerdon’s Courser’ is a critically endangered bird. It's only officially been sighted in the scrub forests of Eastern Ghats mountain range in Andra Pradesh in the Sri Lankamalleswara Wildlife Sanctuary, although recently there was great excitement when its call was recorded in a different location in southern India. BBC Telugu recently joined the nightly efforts by forest watchers to track down the bird last seen 16 years ago, as Satheesh Urugonda reports.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi
Produced by Rebecca Moore and Caroline Ferguson
This is an EcoAudio certified production.
There are now more Russian drone attacks on Ukraine than ever before in the conflict. On some nights, hundreds are targeted at the country. In one raid this week, Ukraine's air force says Moscow launched 619 drones and missiles, killing at least three people and injuring dozens more. In our conversations we bring together Kateryna who has lost her home twice to Russian drones, Kamila, whose aunt was killed in a recent attack, and Inna. She happened to be out when her building was struck by a drone. Plus, drone pilots Andy and Oleksii give us an insight into their lives on the front line of the war.
Harj Gahley is a Sikh who began gambling when he was just 23. What started as a ‘fun’ night out with friends at a casino spiralled out of control, nearly costing him his life. For over a decade, Harj kept his addiction a secret, living a double life that led him to borrow, steal and defraud from family and friends. His addiction pushed him to the edge of personal and financial ruin. Eventually, his deception came to light, devastating his wife and family. Harj’s hidden truth also revealed a deeper cultural stigma. When he first turned to his faith and community leaders for help, instead of finding compassion he says he was met with shame and judgement. A painful confession to an elder exposed just how little understanding there was around gambling addiction. Now a campaigner, Harj works to raise awareness about the damage gambling can do, supporting others as they face their own battles with addiction.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world
Can Nasa build the most complex flying machine in space history? The plan is to create a permanent human presence in space.
It’s Spring 1969 - two months before the launch of Apollo 11 – the first US mission to land humans on the moon. But meanwhile, hidden away from public view, Nasa is thinking the unthinkable.
This is the epic story of the space shuttle, a dream to make spaceflight routine. Told by the astronauts and team who made it happen.
You can listen to episode 1 here. For more, search for 13 Minutes Presents: The Space Shuttle, wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
This is a BBC Audio Science Unit production for the BBC World Service.
Hosted by space scientist Maggie Aderin-Pocock.
Theme music by Hans Zimmer and Christian Lundberg, and produced by Russell Emanuel, for Bleeding Fingers Music.
Archive:
Richard Nixon launches Nasa’s space shuttle programme, CBS News, 1972
Mission audio and oral histories, Nasa History Office
BBC Trending investigates how negative ‘pre-read’ and pre-publication Goodreads ratings are leaving writers - and readers - mystified. Goodreads is a popular website that invites users to track and share their reading habits – through ratings and reviews. But before they even hit the market, some books have attracted negative ratings, leaving authors mystified about who is behind them. So where are these ‘unfair’ ratings coming from - is this the work of individuals with vendettas or bots? And what can be done to stop them?
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from BBC Trending in-depth reporting on the world of social media.
Denmark is eyeing up the military threat from Russia – and dramatically increasing the numbers in its national service. Now, 18-year-old girls are facing a call up.
The BBC has been granted rare access to a military base on the outskirts of Copenhagen to see the newest recruits learn how to operate on the battlefield.
Anna Holligan attends a “Defences Day” where teenagers find out whether they’re fit to serve, and draw a conscription lottery ticket that could shape their future.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
Artist Lesia Khomenko left Kyiv with her daughter the day after the Russians invaded Ukraine – leaving her husband and all of her artwork behind. She now lives in New York, documenting how the conflict has transformed Ukrainian society through her painting. Her first work after the invasion was a portrait of her husband, wearing jeans and a puffa jacket whilst holding a gun and saluting awkwardly. Max is in the Army is part of a series of lawyers, engineers and musicians – all finding themselves abruptly turned into soldiers. Lucy Ash has been to Kyiv to witness the creation of Khomenko’s largest works to date including one which mirrors Kyiv railway station’s staircase, where it will be hung, crowded with figures, symbolising the nation defending its land, culture and democracy.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from In the Studio, exploring the processes of the world’s most creative people.
On 28 September, Moldova’s parliamentary election will be closely watched by leaders in both the EU and Russia.
Ilan Shor, a fugitive oligarch on the run from Moldovan authorities, and now resident in Russia, is believed to be behind a major disinformation campaign. The apparent aim is to draw the nation of just over two million people under the influence of Moscow.
The BBC has sent a reporter undercover to find out how disinformation is being spread, and where the money funding it is coming from.
We hear from President Maia Sandu, on the danger it poses to the electorate, and the wider geopolitical forces at play.
Presenter: Seamus Mirodan
Producer: Sam Judah
Editors: Flora Carmichael and Michael Simkin
BBC Eye Investigative Team: Rowan Ings, Angela Stanciu, Andreea Jitaru, Oana Marocico, Malvina Cojocari
Women in Afghanistan are unable to access education, and getting medical help is difficult. But a radio station in the Panjshir Valley is trying to get crucial information to them nevertheless. Their broadcasts cover everything from breast feeding to basic school science lessons for women and girls who are often isolated. Shekiba Habib of BBC Afghan services went to meet the people making this lifeline radio.
India is a country of well over a billion people, so the clearing of waste, requires a huge number of sanitation workers. About 98% of those workers are from one caste in society, who find it difficult to get jobs in any other industries. Ashay Yedge reports for BBC in India talked to some sanitation workers about why.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
Presented by Faranak Amidi
Produced by Rebecca Moore and Caroline Ferguson
This is an EcoAudio certified production.
The shooting of conservative US activist Charlie Kirk has intensified what was already a bitter divide between those who found him inspiring, and those who believed he spread hate with his views on subjects like gay marriage, Islam and abortion. Since he was killed at a university rally in Utah, some fear the whole idea of free speech and what it means is now in the balance. We hear from some of Kirk’s supporters, and from others who worry about where the US is heading.
Digital technology has transformed the science of bioacoustics - the ways we hear and record animal life in the deep oceans, through the earth and in the skies. Vast leaps in computing power allow us to analyse hundreds of thousands of hours of chirps, whistles, clicks and rumbles. Some researchers say AI can help us understand how elephants communicate in the jungle, what whales are clicking to one another across the watery abyss, and what bats squeal when swooping through the sky. Can we, should we, become digital Dolittles? Maria Margaronis listens in to these ever-expanding realms and wonders what they tell us about our own place on the planet.
Our bodies are filled with bacteria that have rich social lives and, just like people, these microbial neighbours and families do not always get along. In some cases, it is the bacterial equivalent of The Sopranos. Dr Sally Le Page delves into the bacterial dramas of loners, crowd-lovers, backstabbers and do-gooders that are fighting it out in the world and inside our bodies. Co-operation, cheating and selfish behaviour can all lead to benefits or disease so scientists are studying this behaviour to help produce new medicines and clean up our environment.
Tens of thousands of Ukrainian army personnel have been killed since the Russian invasion of their country. Russian casualties could be as high as 250,000. But who rallies the troops when morale crumbles and fear creeps in? How important are religion and faith in the war effort? Lucy Ash hears from two military chaplains who live alongside troops on the Ukrainian side of the trenches. Forty-four-year-old Father Dmytro has lost some f his closest friends in the war and was himself injured in a Russian attack in 2022. But this has not shaken his faith. Lucy also hears from Sister Sasha who spends two weeks each month talking and listening to frontline soldiers. And she hears from Father Dmitry Vasilkenkov, head of the Russian military chaplains, about their role in the military. Most Russian clerics are too fearful to speak to foreign media, but one priest, opposed to the war, tells Lucy that some soldiers see faith and taking communion as “some kind of magic charm” offered to troops going into battle.
Over the past year, Kenya has been rocked by anti-government protests. What started as a demonstration over proposed tax increases soon turned into a nationwide, youth-led protest over the state of the economy, alleged political corruption and police brutality. But it's come at a cost. Dozens of protestors have been killed in clashes with the police, and human rights groups say many activists have been abducted and tortured by agents of the states. Michael Kaloki meets the young Kenyans who are caught in a battle for change.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
Jon Foreman is a Land Artist. He creates work in natural spaces using natural materials like stones, sand, leaves and driftwood. Known for his mesmerising sculptures that harmonise with nature, Jon’s work has captured the imagination of art enthusiasts worldwide.
His artwork may last as little as ten minutes before the sea washes it away, but his sculptures are not meant to last; his art is a testament to the beauty found in the ephemeral moment.
Jon’s work is not defined by meticulous planning, and he rarely has a fully formed idea in his head before he reaches the beach. He allows the environment on the day to guide his creative instincts.
From the ancient tools he uses to create his sculptures to the modern technology he employs to capture it; we follow Jon's creative process as he takes us to his favourite location to work - the pristine beach of Lindsway Bay on the Pembrokeshire coast, West Wales. Jon considers his work to be a collaboration with nature. However, it is nature itself which threatens to erase his work before it is even complete. With the tide fast approaching and mere minutes before the artwork is swept away, will he manage to complete the work in time? We listen to the artists race against natures clock.
Presented by Dualtagh Herr.
How the Chinese Communist Party gets lost in translation and whether it’s accidental or intentional. “The Belt and Road Initiative”, “community with a shared future for humankind”, “socialism with Chinese characteristics in a new era” - the slogans and proclamations coming out of Beijing can sound abstract and bewildering. We examine the complex character of the language and how it’s put to use by the CCP to understand why its message can get lost on the outside world.
Contributor: Tom Lam
Producer: Kriszta Satori, Elchin Suleymanov
Presenter: Krassi Ivanova Twigg
Music: Pete Cunningham
The University library in Tartu, in Estonia, is a large brutalist complex, surrounded by concrete water fountains and futuristic steel sculptures. But inside this unassuming building lies a hidden treasure: rare books worth thousands. In April 2022, some of these books were stolen, including historic editions by Alexander Pushkin. According to Europol, the European law enforcement agency, this theft was part of a criminal operation that targeted national libraries in 12 countries, including the Baltic states, Poland, Finland, Germany and France. It's been described as Europe’s largest book heist since War World Two. Who was behind it? My colleague Nina Nazarova from BBC Russian has been investigating this story.
Plus, 7-year-old Nigerian online musical sensation Emmanuel plays keyboards and drums, and has been captivating audiences online, as BBC Pidgin’s Adesola Ikulajolu reports.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
This is an EcoAudio certified production.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
During an unguarded conversation between President Putin and President Jinping in Beijing, the Chinese leader suggested that scientific developments meant that by the end of the century people might live until 150.
So, what is it like to live to an old age and will 150 years ever be possible?
We bring together two women in Australia, Janet and Myfanwy, with a combined age of 202. One of them still drives. The other stopped getting behind the wheel at 96.
They say they both enjoy busy lives. Janet at 102 doesn’t relish the thought of being 150 though: “Think how doddery and staggery you would be.” And Mwfanwy adds: “I don’t want to live forever!”
In another conversation, 87-year-old Elaine in the United States has this advice: “We’ve all been through difficult times, we’ve all had terrible things happen to us, but you just get past it, and you put one foot in front of the other and you just keep on going.”
We also hear from three distinguished researchers who discuss the reality of living a long life and the science of anti-aging.
This edition is from BBC OS Conversations, where we bring people together to share their experiences.
Presenter: Rahul Tandon
BBC producers: Iqra Farooq, Akwasi Sarpong, Laura Cress and Ash Mohamed
Boffin Media producers: Richard Hollingham and Sue Nelson
(Photo:An elderly man holding a walking stick. Credit: Joe Giddens/PA Wire)
The global fertility supplements industry has an estimated worth of over 2 billion dollars, and it’s growing. Some experts have raised the alarm around poor regulation of companies and the products they sell.
In this episode of BBC Trending we investigate Pink Stork and other supplement companies which say they can help you get pregnant. Now, they're being promoted heavily on social media and beyond. What is the science behind some of the claims?
And what does this say about regulation of the supplements industry as a whole?
Producer & Presenter: Kayleen Devlin
Editor: Flora Carmichael
Rodrigo Medellin loves bats. The Mexican conservationist has been obsessed with the often maligned creatures for over six decades. As a child, he kept blood in ice cube trays in his parents' freezer, to feed to his pet vampire bats. He went on to create Mexico City’s first ever bat festival, and to work with governments, universities, NGOs and researchers all over the world. To many, Rodrigo IS the "bat man."
Like many Mexicans, he is also fiercely proud of the country’s native spirits: tequila and mezcal. The agave spirits are hugely important for Mexico’s economy, especially in the states of Jalisco and Oaxaca. Exports of the drinks are worth billions. Tequila and mezcal have become increasingly popular in recent decades, with sales boosted by big budget celebrity-owned brands designed to appeal to the US consumer. From Kendall Jenner to George Clooney, US celebrities have been riding high on the mass market appeal of the liquor.
But the boom in these industries has had unintended consequences for Rodrigo's beloved bats. Often the agave the spirits are made from is harvested early, before the slow-growing plant can flower. This means bats cannot feed from the nectar, and critically, they can’t do their job as pollinators. This contributes to agave monocultures which are susceptible to disease and blight.
Rodrigo explains how he wanted to change the way the industry works, creating a “bat-friendly” certification for tequila and mezcal producers who leave 5% of the agave untouched, to bloom. But why have so few brands been certified, why is the programme controversial for some producers, and why are bats a tricky sell as far as conservation for many people and communities? Sarah Treanor spends time with Rodrigo in Mexico City and Oaxaca to find out.
A Bespoken Media production.
Image: Rodrigo Medellin holding a bat (Credit: Paul Webala)
How does a seemingly ordinary boy prove to be so extraordinary that he’s given a halo by the Catholic Church? Saint Carlo Acutis was just 15 years old when he died in 2006. William Crawley travels through Italy to the places most associated with the young Carlo to discover for himself what set this teenager apart from the rest.
In Assisi, William meets Carlo’s mother Antonia Salzano Acutis who reveals how her son showed an unusual generosity for a teenager. He visits Carlo’s tomb, where Domenico Sorrentino, Bishop of Assisi, explains the connection between St. Francis and Carlo, as a bridge from the past to the present.
At Carlo’s old school in Milan, Istituto Leone XIII, his former professor, Fabrizio Zaggia, recalls his curious mind. And contemporary students talk of how they can relate to the Saint who designed websites.
But is it all too convenient for the Catholic Church in this Jubilee Year to find a saint that appeals to this younger generation? William ponders this in Rome with John Allen, editor of Crux, the online Catholic newspaper, before heading off to St Peter’s Square and the Dicastery for the Causes of Saints where Monsignor Alberto Royo explains the investigation into Carlo’s life to see if it was one of ‘heroic virtue’.
Presenter: William Crawley
Producer: Jill Collins
Editor: Tara McDermott
Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman
Credit: Carlo Acutis Digital Memorial App: Artist Riccardo Benassi, Curator Milano Arte Pubblica, Commune di Milano
(Photo: Antonia Salzano, mother of blessed Carlo Acutis, who spent his life spreading his faith online, poses in front of a portrait of her son, 4 April, 2025. Credit: Tiziana Fabi/AFP)
The history of Gaza dates back more than 5000 years. In antiquity, it was a key port on the Mediterranean coast. Assyrians, Ancient Greeks, Romans, Byzantines and the Ottomans have all left their mark on this small territory. This rich history is seen by Palestinians as central to their identity. Amid the death and destruction of the war, the BBC’s Middle East Correspondent Yolande Knell meets the Palestinians who’ve desperately tried to save what remains of Gaza’s past.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events
Over the past year, BBC Eye has documented life in Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, helping to capture the deeply personal stories of those living under the continuing shadow of war. Just 30 kilometres from the Russian border, this Russian-speaking city has sustained some of the heaviest attacks of the war.
Reporter Albina Kovalyova follows the stories of people who have nevertheless chosen to continue to live in Kharkiv. One, a writer from the Czech Republic who unexpectedly found love during a visit to this frontline city last year – and who uprooted her life in Prague to move to Ukraine to be with him. He’s an artist from Kharkiv, Konstantin Zorkin, who describes his belief in the transformative power of art and love.
These personal stories of love and life are intercut with the violence Russia continues to unleash on this city of over a million people. And they are set against a shifting geopolitical backdrop, of ultimatums and recriminations and talks, as all the while the attacks on Kharkiv and Ukraine continue.
Presenter & reporter: Albina Kovalyova
Producer: Louise Hidalgo
Editor: Rebecca Henschke
Executive Producer: Michael Simkin
Image: Adela and Konstantin (Credit: Konstantin Zorkin)
Rising sea levels and a worldwide shortage of buildable land make the prospect of floating buildings and infrastructure more beneficial than ever. MAST is an architectural firm based in the southern harbour of Copenhagen in Denmark. Surrounded by shipbuilders and workshops, the MAST studio, run by two young passionate architects, devises and builds houses, community centres, saunas and whole neighbourhoods on water.
While many of their projects can be seen on the waters of Copenhagen, the team is inspired by the long tradition of waterborne dwellings across the world and are currently working on constructions in Thailand, the Maldives, the USA , India and Portugal.
Architecture critic and author Jonathan Glancey is invited to Copenhagen to see the studio in action and to travel out by boat to look at some of the completed projects.
Presenter: Jonathan Glancey
Producer: Susan Marling
A Just Radio production
Image: MAST architects Marshall Blecher and Magnus Maarbjerg (Credit: Susan Marling)
Deep inside the Colombian Amazon hi-tech submarines are being built. When it comes to making the cocaine trade more profitable, there’s nothing narco-traffickers aren’t willing to try. Some of the solutions they’re reportedly employing sound like something out of the American TV series Breaking Bad: GPS-trackers, remotely operated submarines and recruiting highly specialised scientists. Reporter José Carlos Cueto of BBC Mundo has been investigating the new trends and technologies used by cartels in Colombia and abroad.
Labubu dolls, the elf-like plush toys from the Chinese toy maker Pop Mart, seem to have taken the world by storm. Singer Rihanna had one clipped to her bag, influencer Kim Kardashian shared her collection of 10 dolls on Instagram, and former England football captain Sir David Beckham also shared a photo of a Labubu, given to him by his daughter. So, what’s behind this craze? Fan Wang reports from Singapore.
From the US to the Middle East, sand and dust storms have recently swept across many parts of the world, colouring the skies and leaving people with breathing problems. These storms traditionally originate in vast deserts. However, scientists believe that climate change means more people could be affected - with desertification and melting glaciers, exposing more dust. Maria Zaccaro, a BBC journalist reporting for the Global Journalism Science and Climate team, finds out more.
Mumbai in India is one of the most densely populated cities in the world - and it’s also the perfect habitat for leopards. BBC Marathi recently posted a video on their YouTube channel, showing these majestic wild cats strolling down residential streets and even entering people’s homes. In the past, there were several reports of human-animal conflict, including some deadly attacks. But since 2022 there have been no accidents at all. So how did people and leopards manage to find a way to live together in harmony? Reporter Mayuresh Konnur has the story.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world.
This is an EcoAudio certified production.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
There’s plenty of chat on social media about so-called ‘grey divorce’. But are older people around the world really splitting up in record numbers?
The truth is it’s hard to be sure, because reliable figures on global divorce rates don’t exist. Where research has been done - most notably in the US - there’s some evidence that rising numbers of people are deciding to go their separate ways later in life.
We hear from three Americans, including 65 year-old Laura in Virginia. Her immediate feelings post break up - after almost 30 years of marriage - included loneliness and personal reappraisal.
“It was also a complete loss of my sense of identity,” said Laura. “I had my ex husband’s last name longer than I had my own name. I was a mother and my divorce coincided with my kids launching. So it was, okay, who am I now?”
For 68-year-old Steven in North Carolina, who split from his husband eight years ago, new relationships also required adjustment.
“It has taken time to rebuild that kind of trust on the emotional level,” he said, “and then taking your clothes off at 60 is different to taking your clothes off at 45!”
Two women from Malaysia and South Africa also reveal what grey divorce is like from an adult child’s point of view.
Hosted by Rahul Tandon. Conversations by Luke Jones.
A Boffin Media production with producer Sue Nelson in partnership with the BBC OS team and producers Iqra Farooq and Laura Cress.
To Italians, bread is life. With 250 varieties across the country, it’s eaten with almost every meal. Its importance speaks to national values of community, tradition, quality and - above all - religion. In this edition of Heart and Soul, Australian-Japanese food writer Emiko Davies takes a tasty journey into the spiritual significance of bread in Italy, her adopted home.
Davies finds herself in the west of Sicily, where residents honour Saint Joseph by constructing intricate sculptural breads, adorning altars with baked symbols, and staging a ritualised feast attended by the entire community. And then the coast of Puglia, where locals queue to receive blessed loaves in celebration of Saint Anthony. Finally, with food historian Fabrizia Lanza, Davies reflects on the origins of religious superstitions surrounding bread, and what the nation's diverse culinary traditions tell us about faith in Italy today.
Presenter: Emiko Davies
Producer: Jude Shapiro
Executive Producer: Jack Howson
Production Coordinator: Ieva Sabaliauskaite
A Peanut & Crumb production for BBC World Service
Image: Bread display at an altar (Credit: Jude Shapiro)
On the outskirts of Hamburg, Dr Gerald Koch is surrounded by wooden objects - chairs, board games, paint brushes - ready for inspection. His team of scientists at the Thünen Institute of Wood Research are known as the timber detectives. They spend their days putting wood samples under the microscope to find out where they've come from, and if they’re suspect.
Berlin based environmental journalist Becca Warner explores the ongoing problem of illegal deforestation.
Why is it proving so hard to tackle, despite tightening EU regulations? What are the consequences for those living in Papua New Guinea where much of this timber originates? And what makes this group of German scientists so important in the battle to protect the world’s forests?
Presenter: Becca Warner
Producer: Tom Pooley
A 4 kicks production for the BBC World Service.
Image: Gerald Koch and Becca Warner inspect timber samples (Credit: Tom Pooley)
BBC Trending: Why are some Americans yelling at clouds?
On 4 July, just hours after flash floods hit the US state of Texas, killing more than 130 people, social media was inundated with unfounded theories about the causes of this tragedy.
The main allegation was that the extreme rainfall was somehow man-made, with many users blaming Rainmaker, a weather modification company based in California.
These baseless claims were quickly debunked by scientists.
And yet, online, calls for the company’s CEO, Augustus Doricko, to be arrested, punished - or, more sinisterly, executed - continued to multiply.
Suggestions that sinister forces may be controlling the weather by spraying chemicals in the atmosphere may have once been the preserve of niche websites and forums. Not anymore.
As several US states consider banning weather modification and geoengineering, BBC Trending investigates how fringe conspiracy theories have gone mainstream.
Reporter: Marco Silva
Editor: Flora Carmichael
Europe’s largest herd of wild horses, in north-west Spain, is under threat. Numbers have halved in the last fifty years. Now around ten thousand wild horses roam freely in the hills and mountains of Galicia. But they are facing a number of challenges, not least the loss of their habitat and the threat from their main predator, wolves. There are also legal demands imposed by the regional government which have placed added financial burdens on the local people who, in effect, “own” these horses. And yet Galicia’s wild horses have been an integral part of the local culture for centuries, particularly during annual festivals known as “rapas das bestas,” the shearing of the beasts. The horses are also known as engineers of the landscape, credited with boosting the local flora and fauna and with helping to control forest fires.
John Murphy travels to Galicia to hear what is happening to these extraordinary animals and why they are so important.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
The Delacorte Theater, home to New York's beloved free outdoor Shakespeare performances in Central Park, has undergone an $85 million refurbishment. Now clad in redwood timber from disused water tanks from each of New York’s boroughs, the structure has been made accessible for disabled audiences, actors and backstage workers. It's also been made water and raccoon-proof. Presenter Jeff Lunden has been following its progress – from a hard-hat tour in freezing February to the summer previews of a new production of Twelfth Night, starring Oscar-winning 12 Years a Slave actor Lupita Nyong’o, Sandra Oh from Killing Eve, and Game of Thrones’ Peter Dinklage.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from In the Studio, exploring the processes of the world’s most creative people.
The Bangles’ Susanna Hoffs celebrates the life and legacy of Sir Paul McCartney, from his Liverpool roots to Beatlemania and beyond. It is a journey that moves from the late 1950s spanning McCartney’s skiffle start with John Lennon in The Quarrymen, through to his long solo career, taking in Mersey Beat; the rise of the Fab Four to 1960s icons; and Wings’ 1970s success. Susanna learns how The Beatles could only have come from Liverpool, and how a visit to McCartney’s old grammar school led to a significant legacy: the formation of the Liverpool Institute of Performing Arts (LIPA). Joining Susanna are author of recent biography Fly Away Paul, Lesley-Ann Jones; veteran songwriter and member of 10cc, Graham Gouldman; LIPA founding principal and chief executive, Sir Mark Featherstone-Witty; Beatles historian and author, David Bedford; lifelong Beatles enthusiast Jean Catharell; BBC Radio Merseyside broadcaster Paul Beesley; Universal Music Group chairman and CEO Sir Lucian Grainge; plus two LIPA alumni - award winning composer Hannah Peel, and singer, songwriter and guitarist Natalie McCool. Giving the narrative an intimately familial contribution is McCartney’s younger brother, Mike McCartney.
Russian soldiers were told that they would be the country's 'new elite' by President Putin. But many of them have reported being robbed and scammed out of the money that they earned fighting on the Ukrainian front lines. They also face mental health problems, and post-traumatic stress disorder after months or years at war, but suitable treatment is scarce and hard for them to find. BBC Russian's Sergei Goryashko has been looking into the soldiers who have been robbed and scammed, whilst Sofya Volyanova has spoken to the people in Russia attempting to treat soldiers for PTSD and depression.
South Korea banned dog meat in the country last year, and the practice will be entirely phased out by 2027 ending a generations long practice. Hyunjung Kim of BBC Korean has been speaking to people affected by the ban and explains why it got put in place.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world. This is an EcoAudio certified production.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Many parts of Pakistan have been experiencing intense rainfall in recent weeks. Since June, at least 800 people have been killed, homes and businesses lost, and thousands forced to evacuate their communities. In our conversations, we bring together people affected by this year’s monsoon to share their experiences. They include Saad, from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in northern Pakistan, who lost his family home and business: “Many of the houses of the people are completely destroyed and those remaining are full of mud and water,” he tells us. Although it only produces a small fraction of greenhouse gas emissions, scientific evidence suggests that Pakistan is particularly vulnerable to the effects of climate change. Three journalists share their stories of the flooding and their perspectives on the challenges the country faces.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from BBC OS Conversations, bringing together people from around the world to discuss how major news stories are affecting their lives.
In the ancient Yererouk Basilica in Armenia, near the border with Turkey, young engineers are using 3D digital technology to scan every part of the building. The aim is to recreate the church on a screen, in full-colour and in three dimensions. This is the digital preservation initiative, created by TUMO, the Center for Creative Technologies, based in Armenia’s capital Yerevan. It is training young Armenians to use new technology and also to connect them to their their 2000-year-old Armenian Christian heritage. In 2023, the country lost control of numerous important religious sites, when the province of Nagorno-Karabakh was taken over by neighbouring Muslim Azerbaijan. The mountainous enclave, known as Artsakh to Armenians, has long been a disputed territory between the two countries. Despite the new peace agreement signed recently, the province is still closed to Armenians. International observers using satellite technology say dozens of important Christian sites have been damaged or destroyed. Julia Paul travels to Armenia to find out how drones and lasers are helping young Armenians to connect to and preserve their ancient Christian heritage.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.
Earlier this year, Chinese student Zhenhao Zou was jailed for 24 years for drugging and raping ten women in the UK and China. He has been described by police as one of Britain’s “most prolific sexual predators”. After his trial, detectives said they feared he may have attacked 50 more women – many of whom are yet to be identified. Following connections on Chinese social media, reporter Wanqing Zhang from the BBC’s Global China Unit has been speaking exclusively to several of Zou’s victims, and a translator who has helped them, revealing shocking details about his crimes.
In Early June, the Auschwitz Memorial posted a warning about AI-generated Holocaust victims flooding Facebook. BBC Trending has since tracked several accounts pushing these false narratives and other pages posting so-called ‘AI slop’. The investigation has uncovered how these “digital creators” in Pakistan are just one part of a global economy of deception and emotional manipulation exploiting Meta payment models to profit from dubious content.
President Trump has called illegal immigration an “invasion” and what's followed is a huge rise in the arrest and detention of migrants. Some have ended up in ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ - an immigration detention centre that was speedily constructed in June, deep in the Florida swampland. It has become a focal point for debates around immigration. Outside its gates, some take proud selfies with the ‘Alligator Alcatraz’ sign; others protest, following reports of poor conditions inside.
‘Alligator Alcatraz’ is now subject to a number of lawsuits. Immigration attorneys say they haven’t been granted proper access to clients inside; environmentalists claim the detention centre is harming the protected wetlands that surround it. Within the last few days, a judge has that ruled that much of the detention centre must be dismantled and no new migrants taken there. It’s a preliminary ruling - and the case will continue to be litigated. The government immediately filed an appeal.
Josephine Casserly follows immigration lawyer Mich Gonzalez as he attempts to meet his client inside the detention centre. She reports from Florida - America’s new frontline on immigration.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from Assignment, investigations and journeys into the heart of global events.
Adeju Thompson, the founder and creative director behind the Nigerian fashion label Lagos Space Programme, attempts to establish the label on the global fashion scene. Lagos Space Programme blends Yoruba heritage (notably Adire dyeing) with queer and futurist aesthetics, taking inspiration from Lou Reed, traditional Ife sculptures, and the photography of Rotimi Fani-Kayode and Robert Mapplethorpe. Thompson talks about his dedication to slow fashion, gender-fluid creations, and detailed artisan craftsmanship, blending traditional techniques with contemporary designs. Tayo Popoola follows Thompson to Paris where he unveils his collection, based on the idea of "rock'n'roll consciousness". We then join him at his studio in Surulere, Lagos where he discusses his new designs for 25/26.
The incredible true story of how The Avontuur was locked down at sea for 188 days during the Covid-19 pandemic, with 15 people on board. The journey begins for ship’s cook Giulia Baccosi when she accepts a last-minute job aboard the sailing cargo ship The Avontuur. She tells the captain that she will stay with the ship until it reaches Mexico, in about three months’ time. After saying goodbye to her partner, Giulia settles into life on board and the responsibilities of feeding the Avontuur’s crew of 15. But before Giulia and the crew know it, everything they’re counting on will be thrown to the winds.
This extraordinary story, narrated by Siobhán McSweeney, is from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast, from the BBC World Service.
We take a look at some of the more unusual sports practiced on the African continent. Kelvin Kimathi recently travelled to Uganda where a muddy version of entertainment wrestling is becoming increasingly popular. Marcia Veiga discovered Capoeira Angola whilst finding a way to connect with her own Angolan heritage. Eshlin Vedan met the only black teenager in South Africa competing in tent pegging- a cavalry sport of ancient origin.
Nitin Sultane reports for BBC Marathi and recently travelled to a village in Maharashtra where discarded fabric has been turned into paper for 700 years.
This episode of The Documentary comes to you from The Fifth Floor, the show at the heart of global storytelling, with BBC journalists from all around the world. This is an EcoAudio certified production.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
While US President Donald Trump spearheads efforts to halt the conflict in Ukraine, Russian drones and missiles continue to kill and injure civilians, invaders control around a fifth of the country, and many Ukrainians fear that any peace agreement could result in a permanent loss of territory. Away from the international diplomacy, we wanted to give a sense of how life has changed in Ukraine over the past three and a half years of war. We bring together three soldiers who share their experiences of the frontline. We also hear from Ukrainians forced to leave the country and bring together three women dealing with the trauma of the conflict. Sasha tells us. “Everybody has lost someone or something – be it a home, friend or someone from their closest family.”
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from BBC OS Conversations, bringing together people from around the world to discuss how major news stories are affecting their lives.
In one of his final official acts before he died, Pope Francis put Antoni Gaudí, Spain’s most famous architect, onto the path to sainthood. Gaudí's masterpiece, the Sagrada Familia, is a towering basilica, strangely designed and bursting with colour. It stands in the heart of Barcelona and its walls recount the entire story of the Catholic religion. After 140 years, having survived wars, arson attacks and dictatorship, it is still under construction. As Gaudí worked on it throughout his life, he became obsessive and it intensified his devotion. By the end of his life he was living like a monk. The BBC's Max Horberry has been to Barcelona to see Gaudí's work and speak to the people who have been working to finish the Sagrada Familia and campaigning for Gaudí's sainthood. He finds out more about the path to sainthood and how architecture, nature and religion intertwine in Gaudí’s life.
This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from Heart and Soul, exploring personal approaches to spirituality from around the world.
When the American troops withdrew from Afghanistan, they left behind $7bn of military supplies. Where are they now? Hafizullah Maroof from BBC Afghan will take us inside the Kabul flea market that sells second-hand military equipment to the Taliban. Plus: the origin story of capoeira, the Afro-Brazilian sport that blends dancing and martial arts, with Joao Fellet from BBC Brazil and Debula Kemoli from BBC Africa; and how the BBC's Pronunciation unit works with Language Service journalists to make sure we get international names right, with Martha Figueroa-Clark and Jo Kim.Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Thousands of people from all around the world came to Paris this week to talk about the impact of artificial intelligence in society. The rapidly growing technology can emulate a human response and has the potential to learn quickly. This allows it to generate images and words, for example, and do a range of jobs faster and cheaper than humans. We hear from three tech entrepreneurs in Ghana, Denmark and Nigeria where AI is making a positive impact on their businesses. There are other industries, however, where workers fear losing jobs due to AI. Two writers from the UK and the United States share how the technology has reduced some of their work prospects.
Abram Iskhakov is the caretaker of the oldest synagogue in Bukhara, one of the sacred cities of Islam. He is keeper of a Torah inscribed on deer velum and kept safe for 1000 years, or so the story goes. Abram has a powerful voice and recites for us a very special prayer, the Haqqoni, recited at both Jewish and Muslim mourning services in Persian, the language of his city and of Central Asian Jews from Samarkand to the borders of China. What does Haqqoni tell us about the culture of Central Asia? And as the Bukharan Jewish population migrates across the world, what is becoming of the Haqqoni?
The Nuxalk people of Canada's Pacific north-west were almost wiped out by colonisation. Now a community radio station is reviving their language and culture. Nuxalk Radio came on air 10 years ago, inspired by the indigenous Idle No More movement. For World Radio Day 2025, we celebrate this tiny outfit broadcasting from a trailer in the town of Bella Coola, British Columbia, to help an ancient nation recover its mother tongue, supressed for decades by the Canadian government, as well as its identity and self-respect.
There is growing concern about cybercrimes like romance scams and sextortion targeting victims around the world. Hiding behind fake or hacked accounts, fraudsters bombard their targets with messages in the hope of extracting money or compromising personal information. In Nigeria, these operations are often honed in dedicated training academies. Known as 'Hustle Kingdoms', they help con artists stay up-to-date with the most effective techniques for carrying out digital fraud. BBC Trending explores how these schools operate, both in person and on social media, to train the next generation of scammers.
In March 2023, the "final message" from Eden Knight, a young Saudi transgender woman, went viral on Twitter. It was viewed more than 35 million times. It laid bare Eden’s journey from the US back to Saudi Arabia, and the betrayal she claimed to have suffered. BBC Eye investigates the events that led up to Eden’s death, and those she claims were responsible for her return to Saudi Arabia where she tragically took her own life.
Bárbara Sánchez-Kane is a Mexican fashion designer with eclectic influences - from quinceañera dresses to BDSM harnesses, Jesus's loincloth to lucha libre wrestlers in lingerie. Bárbara revels in the camp and complexity of everyday gender performance. Resisting traditional notions of masculine and feminine, Bárbara creates spaces of tension between these contrasting costumes. We join Bárbara in Mexico City to follow the creation of her next line, from studio sketches to final fittings.
For years now, an Islamist insurgency in the Sahel region has been claiming thousands of lives and displacing millions of people. There are fears that it is spreading to one of West Africa’s most stable countries. Ed Butler investigates some new and disturbing indications that fighting on Ghana’s northern border with Burkina Faso has the potential to spread south as well. It is not just the Islamist insurgency, but homegrown conflicts inside Ghana that have the potential to spread. And we hear accounts of smuggled livestock, fuel and weapons, as well as stories of Ghanaian fighters joining the Islamist uprising in the north.
Katie Smith is in New Orleans on the eve of Super Bowl LIX to bring you the atmosphere and the stories ahead of Philadelphia Eagles v Kansas City Chiefs. Katie meets Jackie Wallace who had it all, but the three-time Super Bowl star had a demon he could not deal with. After retirement, he slipped into addiction and lost everything. New Orleans is the home of Jazz, and the father of Jazz is Fats Waller. His great grandson, Darren Waller was a big name in the NFL. He retired last year to turn his mind to music. We catch up with him to talk about football, fame and his family's musical heritage. Plus, New Orleans is known as the party capital of the South, but in August 2005 that all changed. Now when people think of New Orleans, they think of Hurricane Katrina. Doug Thornton was, and still is, the manager of the Super Dome, and through his eyes we will learn what it was like to be in the Super Dome when Katrina hit and how it was rebuilt.
Aalia Farzan of BBC Afghan services left her life in Afghanistan after the Taliban retook the country in 2021 and came to London, and it was there she met her now husband. She speaks about this unlikely love story, and sheds some light on what Afghan courtship entails.
Ilona Hromliuk of BBC Ukrainian has spoken to women who travel thousands of miles across Ukraine, to go on a date with their husbands who are fighting on the frontlines. Presenter: Feranak Amidi
Producers: Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Many countries have condemned President Trump in recent days for his proposal to “take over” the Gaza strip while “resettling” Palestinians in neighbouring countries. We hear from two women in Gaza, returning to what’ is left of their homes. Weam shares with us an audio diary of her recent experiences and we bring her together with Farida to discuss why they want to stay where they are. Donald Trump’s proposal for Gaza would be the largest shift in US policy on the Middle East in decades. Many other nations still support the two-state solution, which would create two separate states – Israel and an independent Palestine – something the Netanyahu government of Israel is against. For our second conversation, we bring together two Israelis who have been involved in past peace talks. What do they think of Donald Trump’s plan?
The Muslim feminist movement is growing in Turkey with young women becoming increasingly vocal about their rights and place in a traditionally patriarchal society. Emily Wither has been speaking to the co-founders of the country’s first Muslim Feminist association about how they have overcome pushback from their own communities, threats to their organisation and navigated a civil society that’s rooted in secularism.
After talks in Germany on government spending collapsed, chancellor Olaf Scholz was forced to dissolve his coalition and call for snap elections, to be held on 23 February. The new chancellor looks like a foregone conclusion - opposition leader Friedrich Merz. But there is so much more at stake in these elections than the next few years in the chancellor's seat. In the run up to Germany’s snap general elections Jeremy Cliffe goes to Ludwigshafen, a symbol of Germany's economic woes.
In September last year, musician Michael Smith of North Carolina was charged with stealing millions from music streaming services. The US Department of Justice has accused him of using artificial intelligence tools and thousands of bots to fraudulently stream songs billions of times - taking millions of dollars of royalties which otherwise would have been paid to real artists. The case has been labelled as ‘unprecedented’ and ‘the first of its kind’. But could fraud on music streaming services actually be much more prevalent than any of the platforms let on? BBC Trending speaks to music industry insiders, and those fighting back against streaming fraud.
Spain is the world’s largest producer of olive oil. But successive, brutal droughts have led to plummeting production, whilst prices have reached record highs. For 2024 / 2025, the weather’s been better - Spain’s predicted to increase the quantity of olives harvested. Even so, this remains a stressed industry. Climate change hasn’t gone away - as we saw so devastatingly last year in Valencia. And in some areas of Spain, the scarcity of water has persisted, with predictions of a near 90% drop in olive production. Critics say super-intensive farming - the rise of the olive ‘mega-farm’ – may also further threaten depleted water resources. Meanwhile, the soaring price of the olives that produce ‘liquid gold’ means rural law enforcement is taken up with cases of theft by criminal gangs targeting this precious commodity.For Assignment, Linda Pressly and Esperanza Escribano report from the olive groves of Spain at harvest time.
Since President Trump was inaugurated in January, migrants – and especially the border the US shares with Mexico - have dominated the news. In this bonus edition, we share an episode we made in 2024 and provide updates on the people we met. The first part charts some of the fallout from the first Trump administration’s policy of forcibly separating migrant children from their parents on the southern border back in 2017/2018. The second half explores the deeply troubling impact of organised crime and the cartels on migrants as they journey across Mexico towards the United States.
BBC Eye investigates police abuse of psychiatric detention in China. In 2012, China introduced a law to curb the widespread abuse of psychiatric hospitals by the authorities, but it hasn’t worked. We reveal how the police found ways to circumvent the law, allowing them to punish protesters without going through the criminal justice system. With almost no checks and balances, the number of people being illegally sent to psychiatric hospitals is said to be surging. Testimonies from protestors, detained for months in secure psychiatric wards reveal how they were restrained, forcibly treated with psychoactive drugs and even subjected to electric shock therapy. Their crime? “Picking quarrels and troublemaking” the catch all offence police use against anyone threatening to disturb “social harmony”.
Thousands of women in Iran were arrested in 2022 after the Woman, Life, Freedom protests against the mandatory hijab. Many of them were sent to Evin, a notorious prison known for housing people with political charges. Through multiple reliable sources BBC Persian has pieced together what day to day life is like for women in Evin and turned it into an animation, 'Songs from Inside'. Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Caroline Ferguson, Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean.'Songs from Inside' is part of the BBC 100 Women series and is available to watch on the BBC World Service YouTube page. To find out more about the other inspiring and influential women on this year's list go to bbc.co.uk/100women. You can also follow BBC 100 Women on Facebook and Instagram.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Hours after his inauguration, President Donald Trump declared a national emergency at America’s southern border with Mexico. He vowed that "all illegal entry will be halted" and that millions of "criminal aliens" would be deported. Many undocumented residents in the United States, who have been living, working and paying taxes there for years, are now fearful that they too will be deported. Alejandra was born in Mexico and was brought to the US by her undocumented parents when she was five. She grew up with her siblings in South Carolina “in the shadows” and now has legal status but is afraid for her family’s future. “My dad is the head of our home,” said Alejandra. “My dad has a mortgage. We would lose the house”. We also hear from residents in Texas who support President Trump’s actions.
In Spirituality in Sin City, presenter Rajeev Gupta takes listeners on an unexpected journey through the hidden spiritual side of Las Vegas—a city famed for its glitz, glamour, and indulgence. Beyond the flashing lights and high-stakes casinos, Las Vegas is home to a growing community of spiritual practitioners and seekers, drawn to the city in search of transformation and meaning.The documentary explores stories of resilience and renewal, including Erin Raymond, a mother navigating profound personal loss while seeking healing in the spiritual community. It also features Chaplain Ryan from Westcare, who supports addiction recovery through a unique blend of Christian and Eastern spiritual practices. Together, their experiences paint a vivid picture of how spirituality thrives in a place known for excess.From meditation sessions to spiritual detoxing and the serene Brahma statue on the Strip, Spirituality in Sin City reveals a side of Vegas few would expect—a city where faith and transformation flourish in the most surprising ways.Produced and Presented by Rajeev Gupta.
Ghana has a reputation for staging some of the most eccentric funerals in the world – boasting extraordinary displays of colour, dancing, deep rooted history, and a strong association with Ghanaian royalty. Hannah Ajala takes the listener on a compelling aural journey as she uncovers the stories behind this unique and complex tradition. In West Africa, end of life celebrations are a far cry from those in the Western world. Each funeral can take weeks or months to plan and they are often more lavish – and expensive - than weddings. Funerals are an essential part of paying respect to the departed. Flamboyant Funerals travels to the cultural capital of the country, Kumasi, to witness a Ghanaian funeral first hand. She delves into the significance of these ancient traditions: the dancing, the dress code, the burial and final funeral rites as well as the role played by the ‘talking drums’.Image credit: Hannah Ajala
Three years since Russia’s full scale invasion of Ukraine, BBC Trending speaks to Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) analysts and fact checkers who have worked diligently throughout the war to verify online content from the front line and push back against malicious propaganda. Their efforts documenting war crimes and debunking misleading content has taken a toll - what keeps them going and how do they avoid burnout?
Presenter: Olga Robinson
Producers: Alex Murray & Yana Lyushnevska
Editor: Flora Carmichael
Saudi Arabia is rolling out the red carpet to filmmakers and foreign companies as it sets out to establish itself as a major player in the entertainment industry. After lifting a 35-year ban on cinemas in 2018, the Kingdom is now luring Hollywood with cash incentives to shoot in the desert, and playing host to a glitzy international film festival. The move is all part of Crown Prince Mohammed Bin Salman's ‘Vision 2030’ - a grand blueprint to rewrite the Kingdom's script, diversify its economy away from oil, and expand its cultural influence though films, gaming and sport, all at the same time seeking to keep an overwhelming young population happy. It is a dramatic transformation with writers, directors and actors now prepared to test boundaries and break taboos on screen. But as Emily Wither finds out Saudi Arabia is still a country where not every story can be told.
Professor Shirli Gilbert explores the story of Żywulska. Imprisoned in Auschwitz, Żywulska turned to poetry and music, creating some of the most remarkable songs of this tragic era. Born in Poland in 1914, Jewish political prisoner Krystyna Żywulska was sent to Auschwitz in 1943. There she was given a very unusual job. She worked at the Effektenkammer, the storage facility for the personal items confiscated from arriving prisoners. This role turned out to be a gift. It gave Żywulska the space and shelter to secretly compose many poems and songs of resistance and optimism, which quickly became popular and spread throughout the camp. She also put on musical events, in secret, to raise the spirits of other Auschwitz inmates.
The Old Oak will be Ken Loach's last feature film and Sharuna Sagar was granted exclusive access behind the scenes of this landmark movie. She joins the 86-year-old director on his swansong as he brings together his loyal team for one last time. As with his previous two films, I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You, Ken returns to the North East of England, to tell the story of Syrian refugees who have been housed in an ex-mining village. With him are his long-standing partners, producer Rebecca O'Brien and writer Paul Laverty, and they reveal the secrets of Loach's success, with films like Kes, Cathy Come Home and The Wind That Shakes The Barley.
A bonus episode from the Sportsworld podcast. Julien Alfred made history in 2024 when she won the women’s 100 metres gold medal in Paris becoming Saint Lucia’s first ever Olympic medallist. The sprinter sits down with Sportsworld’s Lee James to look back on her historic year, as we find out what it took to become an Olympic champion and the strategy she used to win the race. We also discover the impact of her victory on the Caribbean island and the hero's welcome she received when she returned home with the Permanent Secretary of the Ministry of Youth Development and Sports in Saint Lucia, Dr. Uralise Delaire and find out how Alfred’s athletics career started with her first coach Cuthbert Modeste.Sportsworld brings you the latest live action and big name interviews from the world of sport every Saturday and Sunday and for more go to bbcworldservice.com/sportsworld or just search sportsworld wherever you got this podcast.
There have been at least 12 police raids on gay clubs in Russia since November 2023, when the country’s Supreme court banned what they call 'the global LGBT movement'. BBC Russian Anastasia Golubeva has been talking to activists on the ground to find out how these restrictions are affecting them. Five years ago, COVID-19 was spreading around the world, causing millions of deaths. How did the pandemic change our lives, and what lessons have we learnt from it? With Martin Yip from BBC Chinese and Dorcas Wangira, BBC Africa’s Health Correspondent. Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Alice Gioia, Hannah Dean and Caroline Ferguson. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
We witness the first Israeli hostages and Palestinian prisoners being released following the signing of the ceasefire deal. More exchanges are expected over the coming weeks. Meanwhile some displaced people in Gaza have begun returning to see what is left of their communities, and convoys of lorries have started delivering humanitarian aid. We hear from both sides of the conflict. While many welcome the end to the fighting, there is recognition of the trauma caused and uncertainty about whether the ceasefire can hold. Udi in Israel says, “What needs to happen is that both peoples need to create a new narrative for the future.“ Asma, an English teacher displaced in a refugee camp in central Gaza "thank God" she's still alive. And three aid workers talk about the scale of the challenge ahead.
When Father Père Basile was 12 years of age, he started thinking of a religious life. But it never crossed his mind that he would someday be living in a cloistered abbey in the south of France producing wine. The monastery is the site of the oldest papal vineyard in the world, dating back to the 14th Century. When Pope Clement V moved the papal capital from Rome to Avignon in France, his palace needed a steady stream of wine and so the vineyard was planted in Le Barroux. Abandoned for decades, the monks restarted the vineyard to produce a new wine called Via Caritatis (Through Charity) a number of years ago. They wanted to bring business back to the area where small winemaking families have been struggling to survive. Presenter Colm Flynn meets Fr Père Basile, and hears his amazing story of growing up as the the son of world-travelling French foreign ministry workers, and then going on to pursue a deeper calling in life.
What will it mean for Palestinians if Israel bans UNRWA, the UN agency that provides vital aid and essential services to millions of refugees in Gaza and the West Bank? The proposals have drawn widespread condemnation and warnings of a humanitarian catastrophe. Israeli politicians have accused UNRWA staff of taking part in the 7 October attacks alongside Hamas, and have designated it a terror group. We visit refugee camps across the occupied territories to hear about the role UNRWA plays in education, health and emergency food aid, and people’s despair about the prospect of it disappearing. The agency’s services and dependents have mushroomed over the last 75 years. We look at its origins and why it has long been controversial in Israel.
Dating in Medellín, Colombia is being promoted to foreign men on YouTube, TikTok and other social media platforms. Lots of the videos, in English and Spanish, contain misogynistic language and suggest that the local women are both accessible and easy. These videos are part of a wider trend of “passport bros” many of whom are American men, seeking life abroad in places marketed by content creators as being good for meeting women. In theory, adult men going to meet adult women is not a problem, but Medellin has a huge problem with sexual exploitation. It is often nicknamed by the press as ‘the world’s biggest brothel’. Since the pandemic the city has introduced curfews for underage girls in some neighbourhoods while NGOs work against the issue.
How a town in Poland – once in Germany - is discovering its troubling past.Eighty years ago Soviet troops liberated Auschwitz-Birkenau, the largest Nazi extermination camp. Over 1.1 million people, mainly Jews, were murdered there. However, there is an aspect of those terrible days which is less well known and which 80 years later is still being uncovered and still resonating: the death marches.As Soviet troops approached, in January 1945, SS soldiers at Auschwitz-Birkenau forced some 60,000 prisoners to march west, in freezing temperatures. Weak with hunger and disease, those who fell behind were shot.This is the story of how eight decades on the search for the truth behind one of those death marches is being uncovered. For years the history of a death march passing through the once proud German community of Schönwald was hidden.It is also the story of how descendants of the original inhabitants of Schönwald are having to confront the role some of their relatives may have played in the Nazi project, and how today’s Polish inhabitants of the town, which is now called Bojków, are grappling with what happened on their streets.
Amie Liebowitz’s own great-grandmother was murdered Auschwitz-Birkenau, while her great-aunt was rescued by the Soviet forces. She speaks to those on both sides – German and Polish – who are uncovering this history.
In an old schoolroom in the Scottish Highlands, sculptor Michael Visocchi is working on Commensalis, a huge work that will be installed thousands of miles away, in Grytviken, an abandoned whaling station on the Antarctic island of South Georgia. Whaling ships and equipment were taken Grytviken and assembled there. Now it is an industrial scrapyard; ships rust on the shore, huge tanks decay and millions of left over rivets remain. Visocchi was struck by the similarity of shape of these rivets and the bumps of the barnacles on the bodies of living whales.Visocchi talks to presenter Julian May as he works on this project which is challenging in so many ways. South Georgia has no permanent population, so is a public artwork appropriate?
America through the looking glass, a world where nothing is as it seems. Gabriel Gatehouse follows a cast of characters who have propelled Trump into the White House – twice. Many of them are now set to take power and inject their reality-bending world views into America’s health, security and intelligence infrastructure.
When BBC Mundo journalist Ana Maria Roura found out she couldn't get pregnant, she decided to turn the camera on herself and document her struggle to become a parent through in vitro fertilisation, or IVF. Her documentary, Infertile, is available in Spanish and in English. Plus, the science of super-centenarians, with BBC World Service journalist Fernando Duarte.Presented by Faranak Amidi. Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Vast areas of Los Angeles have been destroyed since these fires began on 7 January. Thousands of homes and businesses have been lost, and tens of thousands of people have been forced to evacuate. We hear from Kelly, who had just minutes to gather a few possessions before her home was destroyed, and DJ describes seeing a nearby hillside glowing, the sky lit by flames, as he and his family fled. Teddy whose family had to abandon their house and lost their restaurant in the fire says “We landed in an Airbnb down in Mar Vista with our sons and grandkids,” Two firefighters from Los Angeles County Fire Department share their experiences of co-ordinating the response to the fires and explain why they are so difficult to put out.
Elie Wiesel, Nobel Prize winner and Holocaust survivor, once told Michael Goldfarb of people going to their deaths at Auschwitz asking who will say Kaddish for me? Kaddish is the Jewish prayer for the dead. On the 80th anniversary of Auschwitz' liberation Michael Goldfarb explores the origins and meaning of Kaddish. How did a prayer for the dead, in which death is not mentioned, become the centrepiece of Jewish mourning?
Around the world, prison populations are bursting at the seams, but in some European countries, they are closing and reoffending rates are down. The trend has been attributed to a novel approach to justice, one that places the mental health of offenders at its heart. Forensic psychologist Dr Jenny Okolo investigates whether prison systems around the world could benefit from a similar approach. Jenny speaks to Dr Marrit de Vries from the Dutch Institute for Forensic Psychiatry and Psychology, to learn about a novel approach to mental health intervention pioneered in the Netherlands. And in Sweden, we hear from Dr Martin Lardén from Karolinska Institutet’s Center for violence prevention, who discusses the efficacy of the Risk-Need-Responsivity model, an approach which positions the offender at the heart of the strategies devised to address the causes of their crime. And Rivelino Rigters, who draws on lived experience from within the criminal justice system, reflects on how a kinder, community-focused approach could stop crime from happening in the first place.
A mechanical engineer by day, Hania Zataari felt compelled to put her skills to use as the war intensified in Lebanon. Hailing from the south, one of the worst hit areas in the country, she has created a chatbot on WhatsApp that simplifies access to much-needed aid. BBC Trending follows Hania as she helps to bring aid to those affected by the war between Israel and Hezbollah. We also speak to people who have been helped by her chatbot and an aid volunteer to paint a picture of how Hania’s chatbot might be streamlining the service, as well as aid organisations who have shed light on the trials and tribulations of getting to people in south Lebanon.
Each year young people from the tiny West African nation of The Gambia try to reach Europe through “The Backway” - a costly, perilous journey over land and sea.Many do not make it. In recent years, the EU has done deals with several North African nations to clamp down on irregular migration. Though human rights groups say the treatment of migrants can be brutal - allegations the authorities deny. But each year thousands of African migrants say they have no choice but to return home.It can be a struggle to return. Some are traumatised by their experience and face stigma for having failed to reach Europe. Others are already planning to try again.For Assignment, Alex Last travels to The Gambia to find out what happens to migrants who've risked everything to get to Europe, but end up back home.
Kiran Gandhi, aka Madame Gandhi, is an American artist, activist and producer who originally started out as a percussionist for popular British artist MIA, and American electronic music duo Thievery Corporation. She holds a masters degree in Music Science Technology at Stanford University and is on a mission to find innovative ways of using music to motivate and inspire people to care about climate change. Tom Raine follows Kiran on her journey to record brand new sounds in the North Pole, where she hopes to record everything from glaucous gulls, black-leg kittiwakes to common guillemots, as well as arctic foxes, seals and maybe polar bears. He then follows her to her studio in London to see exactly how Kiran sculpts these sounds into hi-hats, kicks, snare drums, bass tones, and more.
In Freetown, Sierra Leone, we join a group of African-Americans who have all taken a DNA test and discovered their ancestors came from this country on the West Coast of Africa, before they were trafficked to the US and enslaved. Over their two week trip, we explore the bustling city of Freetown, a very different experience to the US. They travel to remote villages where their ancestors may have lived. Here they are each adopted by a local family and given a traditional name according to the ethnic group indicated in their DNA test. There is also a boat trip to Bunce Island, where they find the ruins of a slave fort where men, women and children were held captive in appalling conditions. And we meet other returnees who have come back to Sierra Leone to make a difference.
Eunice Yang from BBC Chinese reports on the closure of over 400 maternity wards across China. Plus, South Korea's illegal tattoo parlours with BBC Korean's Yuna Ku, and why Ghana's traditional kente fabric has been recognised by UNESCO as an Intangible Cultural Heritage, with BBC Africa's Jelilat Olawale. Yuna's documentary is part of the BBC 100 Women series. To find out more about the other inspiring and influential women on this year's list go to bbc.co.uk/100women. You can also follow BBC 100 Women on Facebook and Instagram. Presented by Faranak Amidi.
Produced by Caroline Ferguson, Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Over the past decade, cars and trucks have been used as lethal weapons in an increasing number of attacks. Fourteen people died and at least 35 were injured when a driver of a pickup truck targeted crowds in New Orleans on New Year’s Day. Less than a month earlier, a nine-year-old child and five adults were killed in a similar incident in the eastern German city of Magdeburg where a car was driven through a crowded Christmas market. Kathy was dancing in a Christmas parade in the town of Waukesha in the US state of Wisconsin in 2021 when a car rammed into the performers, killing six people and injuring dozens more. Donna was watching the parade: “I remember it like it was yesterday,” she tells host Mark Lowen. Donna and Kathy are joined by Astrid in Germany, whose father was killed in a 2016 attack on a Christmas market in Berlin.
Sahar Zand follows young Hindu activists Banamali and Sukanto, who are documenting the violence they say authorities and media are ignoring. She joins them as they respond to a new attack on a Hindu-majority village, where a mob set fire to a yet another building. The attacks are not just aimed at buildings. Sahar meets victims, including an elderly village doctor recovering from an attempted murder and a grieving mother whose 14-year-old son was killed trying to escape the country. In a tense interview, Sahar confronts Mahmudul Hasan Gunovi, a far-right Islamist leader accused of fueling the violence with his inflammatory rhetoric. She experiences the violence first-hand during a volatile encounter when Banamali and Sukanto visit a sensitive site, where a Hindu crematorium has recently been destroyed, and a make-shift mosque built on its ruins.
Since humans have been on earth, the night sky has caused many to gaze upwards, open-mouthed in astonishment. Beyond its beauty, it has facilitated both the development and advancement of human and animal life on Earth. Celestial navigation guided humans across the seas, forming new trade routes and civilisations. The constellations also signalled when winter or summer was approaching so people would know when to sow their crops. But for decades, the night sky has been changing dramatically. Thousands of satellites now blink in amongst the stars and planets, doubling in number in the past few years largely due to the existence of companies like SpaceX. As objects continue to be launched into space with sparse environmental regulations in place, astro-photographer Monika Deviat asks: what do we stand to lose?
In the city of Goma, former child soldiers are being rehabilitated using capoeira, the Brazilian martial art. Since the start of the conflict in 1996 in the Democratic Republic of Congo, child soldiers have been recruited to fight. After they are demobilised from armed groups, many suffer from mental health disorders like anxiety, depression and post-traumatic stress disorder. The demobilised child soldiers are housed in transit centres while they wait to be reunited with their families. While they wait, Social Capoeira is one of the therapies offered to them. It is a form of capoeira where the fighting is non-contact and dialogue, and wellbeing are prioritised. Congolese journalist Ruth Omar explores the impact of this unique approach.
The people of Valencia are still trying to come to terms with the events of 29 October - in a matter of hours, the Spanish city was hit by flash floods, leaving behind a trail of death and destruction. But, as news of the floods began circulating on social media, so did rumours about the supposed causes behind the torrential rain. “This is not normal weather”, suggested one tweet seen more than a million times, “This is weather warfare manipulated by HAARP.”
Claims that the weather is being manipulated through the High-frequency Active Auroral Research Program (HAARP), an atmospheric research programme first developed by the US military, are not new. And yet, as many extreme weather events become more frequent and intense, these lies appear to be finding new audiences. So, what is the truth about HAARP?
Why feminism has become a dirty word in South Korea. In South Korea being a feminist is now something that can only be admitted in private, thanks to a fierce backlash against feminism. Anti-feminists accuse women who advocate for equality as being man-haters, worthy of punishment. Online witch-hunts - spearheaded by young male gamers - target women suspected of harbouring feminist views, bombarding them with abuse and demanding they be fired from their jobs. Jean Mackenzie investigates how these witch-hunts have silenced women. She asks what this means for the future of women's rights in a country where gender discrimination is still deeply entrenched.
You might not know the name Dan Perri, but you will probably have seen his work: he designed the title sequences for some of the most famous films in cinema history. Mark Burman hears how he created the titles for Star Wars, Raging Bull, Taxi Driver and The Exorcist.
A few years ago, the town of Anam in Southern Nigeria was known for all the wrong reasons: high levels of crime and knife and gun violence. A group of local women, known as 'ụmụadas', decided to take matters into their own hands and confronted criminals with... their kitchen spoons. BBC Igbo editor Adline Okere, who is an ụmụada herself, has the story. Plus, how Subagunam Kannan's passion for filming ants in his own house led him to make a viral video for BBC Tamil, and a train journey through Thailand and Laos with Thuong Le from BBC Vietnamese.Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
“I’m looking for a man in finance …” is the opening line of one of the most viewed, copied and remixed social media posts of the year. The woman behind it, Megan Boni, aka TikTok’s Girl on Couch, invented the rhyme as a jokey description of the perfect man she and her single friends would like to meet. She posted it one evening, and the internet went wild. It has been a similar story for Scottish actor Kirsty Paterson. Kirsty was photographed looking dejected in a sad green Oompa Loompa wig at possibly the world’s worst Willie Wonka-inspired event ever. The picture, which she hates, was shared around the world, and the initial publicity led to a slew of vicious replies. Megan and Kirsty are joined by Kelley Heyer, the inventor of the Charli XCX's Apple Dance, and Auri Kananen, Finnish queen of housecleaning videos, to discuss what it is like to ‘go viral’, and what happens next.
In the aftermath of Bangladesh’s political unrest and the student-led protests that led to the collapse of Sheikh Hasina’s government in August 2024, the country is facing a period of transition and uncertainty. Amid the chaos, harrowing videos and reports of violent attacks against the Hindu minority flooded social media—images of burning buildings, horrifying violence, and women weeping as they pleaded for help. However, some began to doubt the veracity and authenticity of these videos after they seemed to be sensationalised by right-wing influencers and news outlets in neighbouring India.Despite this, shocking new videos of alleged attacks continue to appear on social media, with little or no acknowledgement from a world that is now questioning their legitimacy. In the first episode of a two-part series for BBC World Service’s Heart & Soul, reporter Sahar Zand travels to Bangladesh to investigate the truth behind the contradictory news headlines and the contrasting videos emerging daily online. There, Sahar follows two Hindu university students, Sukanto and Banamali, who have made it their mission to verify and document what they describe as brutal assaults on their community, determined to set the record straight.Sahar follows Sukanto and Banamali as they travel to some of the worst-affected areas, and sees and hears firsthand accounts of homes burned, families separated, temples desecrated, and entire villages torn apart by mob violence. Despite their tireless efforts to report the truth, the two friends say that the Hindu experience in Bangladesh has been met with silence from both the world's media and the country's authorities. Producer: Sahar Zand
Executive producer: Rajeev Gupta
In Palermo, and across southern Italy, there are two main types of stray dog. There are the semi-wild packs that live on the edge of human settlements, and then there are the cani di quartiere (dogs of the neighbourhood). These dogs are known by everyone and owned by no one. They sprawl out for naps in the middle of the pavement, frequent the same butchers for their scraps, play with the neighbourhood kids, and have friends - canine and human - all over the territory. Unlike strays in other parts of Europe, they are not rounded up and treated as a nuisance. They are protected by law, which guarantees their freedom as long as they are not a danger to people, animals, or property. British writer and producer Georgia Walker has been fascinated by the lives of these animals, and what they mean to the city.
The fear of an Anterior Cruciate Ligament injury, or ACL, hangs over all athletes. It is a season-ending injury, agonising, and with a long painful recovery. But why is it happening to so many female footballers? Research shows that ACL injuries are up to six times more likely to happen to female athletes than male. Former England International Footballer Lianne Sanderson, who suffered an ACL injury in 2016, explores the science behind this statistic and finds out about the solutions that are being put in place. From the UK charity initiative Power Up To Play, established by medical professionals to offer preventative support at grassroots level, to experts at Oslo Sports Trauma Research Center in Norway and the team at IDA Boots who are making female-specific soccer cleats, Lianne introduces a number of solutions and learns about the science of ACL injuries in female athletes.
Tourists are flooding to Cambodia's "8th wonder of the world," the ancient temple complex at Angkor. But the rapid expansion of the site comes at a terrible cost, as tens of thousands of people are ousted. The authorities call some "illegal squatters" and claim others volunteered to leave. But human rights groups say the evictions are forced, illegal and target families who've worked the land for generations. Many say they're now debt-ridden and struggling to survive. Jill McGivering travelled to Angkor to meet those at the heart of the crisis.
Former US President Jimmy Carter has died aged 100. The 39th U.S. President and Nobel prize winner lived longer than any president in history. He celebrated his 100th birthday in October 2024. How did a peanut farmer from the Deep South and Georgia Governor become president? Justin speaks to Jonathan Alter, author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life. From brokering peace in the Middle East, to famously promising the American people he would never lie, Carter served as president from 1977 to 1981. It was period beset by economic and diplomatic crises. The Carter Center, which advocates for democracy and human rights around the world, said he died on Sunday afternoon at his home in Plains, Georgia. HOST: * Justin Webb, Radio 4 presenter GUEST Jonathan Alter, author of His Very Best: Jimmy Carter, a Life. GET IN TOUCH: * Join our online community: https://discord.gg/qSrxqNcmRB * Send us a message or voice note via WhatsApp to +44 330 123 9480 * Email Americast@bbc.co.uk * Or use #Americast This episode was made by Chris Flynn with Joe McFadden. The technical producer was Mike Regaard. The series producer is Purvee Pattni. The senior news editor is Sam Bonham. If you want to be notified every time we publish a new episode, please subscribe to us on BBC Sounds by hitting the subscribe button on the app. You can now listen to Americast on a smart speaker. If you want to listen, just say "Ask BBC Sounds to play Americast”. It works on most smart speakers. US Election Unspun: Sign up for Anthony’s BBC newsletter: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-68093155 Americast is part of the BBC News Podcasts family of podcasts. The team that makes Americast also makes lots of other podcasts, including The Global Story, The Today Podcast, and of course Newscast and Ukrainecast. If you enjoy Americast (and if you're reading this then you hopefully do), then we think that you will enjoy some of our other pods too. See links below. The Global Story: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/w13xtvsd The Today Podcast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0gg4k6r Newscast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/series/p05299nl Ukrainecast: https://www.bbc.co.uk/sounds/brand/p0bqztzm
Argentinian artist Tomás Saraceno's studio is two big and old industrial units covered in graffiti, in what was East Berlin. This was where the company AGFA developed and made the chemicals that made colour photography possible. The ground is so polluted Saraceno's lease forbids him from growing any vegetables, and this matters to this environmentally concerned artist. But the industrial past of Studio Saracen is fitting as Tomás’ work is highly technical. Here he has an architecture department, an arachnid research laboratory and an engineering works. He has about 40 people working on different projects.
Tomás talks to Julian May about some of his projects, including Aerocene - sculptural hot air balloons that ascend and fly without the use of any fossil fuels, by capturing the reflected heat of the sun. His ambition is to create a kind of slow aviation, in which his balloons circumnavigate the globe on air currents.
A special bonus episode remembering some past HARDtalk guests who died in 2024. All of them made a significant impact, whether it be in politics, activism or culture. Here is a chance to reflect on their lives and motivation.For more in-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities, go to bbcworldservice.com/HARDTalk or search for HARDTalk wherever you got this podcast.
Why are old Bollywood hits being re-released in cinemas? And why are horror movies doing so well this year? Journalists Meryl Sebastian, Yasser Usman and Shoaib Sharifi discuss all things Bollywood. Produced by Alice Gioia, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Back in 2015, BBC World Service launched the first BBC Women’s Footballer of the Year award, to raise the profile of the women’s game but also highlight key issues within the sport. Ten years ago, the current Champions League winners Barcelona and the Women’s Super League in England still weren’t professional, the Women’s World Cup was about to kick off in Canada using artificial pitches, much to the dismay of players and coaches – something which has never been repeated! To mark an historic 10th year of the award, past winners including Norway’s Ada Hegerberg, Nigeria’s Asisat Oshoala and England’s Lucy Bronze reflect on winning the trophy. Along with previous nominees, they discuss key moments in the last decade and the challenges still ahead for the women’s game.
Hollywood star Idris Elba recently announced he'll soon relocate to Africa and promote the film industry there. He spoke to BBC Africa's Thomas Naadi about it. The British actor is not alone: BBC Africa Eye's Nour Abida has been following the journeys of a group of second generation French nationals who want to move back to Senegal. Her documentary, The Homecoming, is available on the BBC World Service YouTube channel. Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
More than two weeks after the floods that swept through the Valencia region of Spain, the streets are still being cleared of mud and debris. More than 220 people are known to have died but many more have lost their homes and businesses. In our conversations, a family shares their experience of searching for their father and we hear how a mother is struggling to come to terms with the events she witnessed. Meanwhile, recriminations are flying over who is to blame. Officials are facing criticism for failing to issue a weather warning to people’s phones in time, and for the slow mobilisation in the aftermath of the disaster. Three volunteers who have been helping with the rescue effort share their frustrations with the government response.
At the age of 34, Donna Mulhearn – a committed Christian - had grown disillusioned with her career as a journalist and political adviser. When she heard someone on the radio seeking volunteers to serve as human shields in Iraq, Donna - already opposed to the war and a staunch advocate of non-violent action - immediately knew what she had to do. Despite the objections of concerned family and friends, she travelled to Baghdad to join hundreds of other volunteers from around the world. But all too soon things got complicated. The Iraqi authorities had their own ideas about where the human shields should be deployed – and then Donna, along with other volunteers, witnessed scenes of carnage. Despite all this, Mike Wooldridge, asks, does she feel with hindsight that she did the right thing?
You can spend hours in an airport and never learn anything about the people around you. But follow the chaplains of London Heathrow, and you might start to see things - and people - differently. Headed up by Reverend Ruth Bottoms, a team of 20 multi-faith chaplains offer sanctuary and support to passengers and staff in the unpredictable environment of a mega airport. Counselling nervous fliers, responding to crises, leading daily masses in Heathrow’s own chapel - these chaplains respond to whatever comes their way.Jude Shapiro spends a week with the chaplains and those they encounter to see what happens when faith, flight and the stresses of Europe’s busiest airport combine.With thanks to the Heathrow Multi-Faith Chaplaincy and Heathrow Airport.Presenter/producer: Jude Shapiro
Executive producer: Jack Howson
Sound engineer: Arlie Adlington
A Peanut and Crumb production for BBC World Service
A historic trial is underway in Sweden. Two European executives of a Swedish oil company are accused of aiding and abetting war crimes in South Sudan. George Tai, whose family was killed in the so-called “oil wars”, hopes the case will set a legal precedent. BBC Eye investigates the legacy of oil in South Sudan: from violence to pollution and asks who should be held responsible?
Sydney has one of the most recognisable opera house in the world, but some of the most innovative opera-making is happening at the other end of town, in the building where they used to build train carriages. Sydney Chamber Opera, led by o Jack Symonds, is a young, experimental collective of opera makers, collaborating with the established national company Opera Australia to bring Jack's epic Gilgamesh to the stage. Directed by Kip Williams, it is a new opera based on a very old story of queer desire, environmentalism, and dancing scorpions. Ce Benedict follows Gilgamesh from pianos falling through floorboards in rehearsals, to Opera Australia's artistic director unexpectedly stepping down, through to the literal glitter of opening night.
Why are people protesting on the streets of Tbilisi, in Georgia, and how did people vote in Indian-administered Kashmir? With correspondents Nina Akhmeteli and Raghvendra Rao. Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
On 20 January, Republican Donald Trump will be sworn in as the 47th president of the United States. His domestic pledges include promises to bring down prices, tackle immigration, introduce tariffs on imports, and cut tax. Throughout the election campaign, we have been hearing from people from across the US - Republicans, Democrats and those who were undecided – about the issues that matter to them. In the lead up to the election, we heard from American voters from across the political spectrum and, this time in our conversations, host Mark Lowen hears widely contrasting views on the future of the country.
Twenty years ago, one man took it into his hands to educate Arab-Israelis about the Holocaust and its ongoing psychological effects. Khaled Kasab Mahameed, a lawyer from Nazareth, opened what is believed to be the first ever Arab-led Holocaust museum. His aim: to open the eyes of his fellow Arabs to the trauma of the Holocaust while at the same time reminding Jewish Israelis of the suffering of his own Palestinian people. Mike Wooldridge hears Khaled’s story and discovers why, despite his enormous idealism, he soon found himself the target of criticism from both sides of the conflict.
When rising sea levels threaten a country’s very existence, how can its culture be preserved? Tuvalu wants to create an online replica of its landscape and an archive of its language, music and important artefacts. Prianka Srinivasan finds out how the government’s “digital nation” plan is developing, and speaks to Tuvaluans about what they are already doing to celebrate and pass on the country’s heritage and customs.
A bonus episode from the People Fixing the World podcast. 2024 has been called a record breaking year for elections, with billions of people eligible to take part in all types of votes. But how can we make sure people can vote safely and securely? We visit Australia's Northern Territory to see how voting takes place in incredibly remote communities. We also find out how a group of eminent women in Uganda is combating violence and intimidation during elections. And we hear how Estonia operates one of the most high-tech elections in the world. People Fixing the World looks at common challenges around the world and the creative ways people are trying to tackle them. Discover more of the people and projects trying to make the world a better place at bbcworldservice.com/peoplefixingtheworld or, just search for People Fixing the World wherever you got this podcast.Presenter: Myra Anubi
Producers: Katie Solleveld, Richard Kenny
Australia reporter: Laetitia Lemke
Sound mix: Hal Haines
Editor: Jon Bithrey
Ghanaian journalist Justice Baidoo is teaching his young children how to speak the ancient African language of Ahanta. He home schools them with lessons several times a week in an effort to keep the indigenous language alive in a continent where many are disappearing due to the over dominance of English and French, and in more recent years the added power of American culture through mass media, online and through mobile phones. Justice travels across Ghana to hear how locals are trying to revive the language of Animere in the Kecheibe and Kunda villages by setting up a radio station and running regular dedicated church services attracting a one-thousand-strong congregation. Other languages under threat include Twi, Ewe, Ga, Fanti. Waala and Frafra.
Formed by guitarist and vocalist Shayan, TRIVAX was formed in 2009, in the underground music scene of his home city, Tehran. The capital of a country where freedom of expression is severely restricted, resulting in tough censorship laws. The Iranian government tightly controls musical content, prohibiting lyrics or themes deemed critical of the regime, or inconsistent with Islamic values, and heavy metal tends to fall under this category. Escaping to the UK, Shayan found a like-minded ally in bassist Sully, who had similarly left Syria after facing jail time for his metal associations, and they teamed up with British drummer Matt Croton. Now, TRIVAX utilises the adversity of its members’ roots, to produce its unique trademark sounds they call "Eastern Death Magic”; a combination of black metal with Middle Eastern influences and on a mission to fight against oppression and totalitarianism through music. Sahar Zand follows them as they work on their latest track Against All Opposition.
The Danish town of Kalundborg should be a boom town, as the main manufacturing site for the weight loss drug Wegovy. The pharmaceutical company which makes it, Novo Nordisk, is the most valuable in Europe and has invested $8.5 billion dollars in a new plant there. Despite this economic bounty, Kalundborg’s schools are underperforming and entertainment opportunities are limited. Many young keen people say it’s peaceful but dull and can’t wait to get out to study and work in bigger cities like the capital, Copenhagen. Can the mayor persuade people to move and live there long term?
How are the popular Ikat designs made? BBC journalist Ibrat Safo explores Uzbekistan's love story with textiles. Plus, Sanjaya Dhakal of BBC Nepali explains why a group of Kathmandu artists launched an inventive campaign to repatriate their country's stolen art.'Silk Roads' is at the British Museum in London until February 2025.Produced by Alice Gioia, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Throughout the presidential election campaign, we have been hearing from voters across the political spectrum. One issue keeps coming up: how much it costs to live, to feed the family, to fuel a car, or to pay the rent or mortgage. Surveys have consistently indicated the economy is a top concern for Americans – transcending age and political affiliation. Since the pandemic, most people in the country have experienced steep price rises of many essentials like housing, groceries and fuel. But the economic outlook is good. Last week, the US Commerce Department released the latest figures on the state of the nation’s finances. They showed that the economy grew by 2.8 percent and that the country is on track for one of the strongest economic performances of any major economy this year. So why aren’t people feeling it? In our conversations, we bring together young people in Connecticut, Texas and Pennsylvania.
Vanessa’s Fridays saw her dancing the night away in the night clubs of Liverpool, having drinks with friends, sometimes staying out all night. But now Fridays are times of prayer with new friends at the mosque. She took her vows – shahada – to become a Muslim within a month of Hamas attacking Israel and the resulting military campaign in Gaza and says the unshakeable faith of Palestinian Muslims then was the catalyst for her conversion. Now, wearing a full hijab, she has made it clear to all around her, her life has totally changed. She no longer sees the friends she used to spend so much time with. But that loss has partly been made up through the support of her new friends, many of whom are also converts to Islam. In Liverpool where she lives, the South African born Vanessa, plans to change her name to Amina, after the prophet Mohammed’s mother, further marking herself out as Muslim and identifying with the global Muslim community – or Ummah.
The Pantanal, in western Brazil, is the world’s largest tropical wetland, and home to tens of thousands of animal species. But expansion of shipping and development is causing an increase in wildfires, and the loss of unique habitats. The Jaguar is the apex predator in the Pantanal, roaming over vast hunting grounds, but the changing environment means that they are now under threat too. Reporter James Harper travels down the rivers of the Pantanal, talking to activists, conservation experts and local businessmen to explore the debate over the future of the Pantanal and its famous big cats.
They call it the Big Game. Somali influencers are taking part in clan-based battles on TikTok. A US college student who spent $4000 in just four minutes tells the BBC she regrets ever getting involved. She felt addicted to the draw of defending her clan and says she was later harassed by an influencer. The trend is taking Somali social media by storm but many are worried these games go beyond entertainment and are contributing to a toxic environment online.
'I didn’t know she was black until a number of years ago when she happened to turn black,' said Donald Trump, recently.When the former US president called into question Kamala Harris's racial identity, it sparked an angry backlash. The White House press secretary, Karine Jean-Pierre, responded by saying 'no-one has any right to tell someone who they are [or] how they identify.'Mr Trump's words hit a nerve in the American psyche, tapping into a centuries-old debate about ethnicity and authenticity, power and privilege.But in an age where it is said that race is a social construct, how fluid is racial identity?For Assignment, Ellie House travels around the US, meeting people fighting to claim their racial identity - as well those looking to police it. From an organisation that seeks to expose fake Native Americans in North Carolina, to the Ohio town where people with red hair and green eyes still identify as black, due to the racist history of their town's authorities.‘Please note, this episode contains some outdated racial language that could cause offence.’
Ishmael Reed is one of America's greatest and most prolific living writers - but aged 86 he is writing his first music. Lindsay Johns travels to his home in Oakland, California, to join his first recording session, and find out what motivates him to keep writing. Between his home, his local bookstore, the city's downtown, restaurants and historical waterfront, Lindsay understands how much this city, and the West Coast spirit continues to animate Reed's writing, and his literary activism.
A bonus episode from The Climate Question podcast - Is the climate on the ballot at the US election? The southern US state of Georgia has received billions of dollars in investment in clean technology, creating tens of thousands of jobs at solar power factories and electric vehicle factories. It is also on the front-line of extreme weather - facing the threat of hurricanes, heatwaves and drought. So will voters in this swing state be considering climate change when they cast their ballots for the US presidential election in November? And how are politicians in Georgia talking about the issue. Jordan Dunbar takes a road trip across the state to find out. Weekly, The Climate Question looks at why we find it so hard to save our own planet, and how we might change that. For more episodes just search for 'The Climate Question' wherever you got his podcast. Got a question you’d like answered? Email: TheClimateQuestion@bbc.com or WhatsApp: +44 8000 321 721 Presenter: Jordan Dunbar
Producer: Beth Timmins
Sound Mix: Tom Brignell
Editor: Simon Watts
Commonly associated with Count Dracula, the blood-sucking character in Bram Stoker’s quintessential novel, vampires continue to seduce. But where exactly did the vampire myth originate from? BBC Serbian’s Milica Radenković Jeremić has been researching the cultural history of vampirism.
Plus, BBC Africa's Njoroge Muigai talks about the spirits and monsters that terrified him as a child growing up in Kenya.Produced by Caroline Ferguson, Hannah Dean and Alice Gioia. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
In less than two weeks, Americans will elect their new president. When it comes to voters, both Donald Trump and Kamala Harris know that getting black and Latino men on their side could be vital. There are question marks over whether Kamala Harris will get the levels of support from those voters that she might hope for. It has led to much discussion about whether she has a so-called “man problem”, especially as there are suggestions that Donald Trump is increasing his appeal in this respect. Former president Barack Obama also recently asked if some of those men might have an issue seeing a woman as the country’s leader. In this edition, black and Latino men across the United States discuss the issues that matter to them and who they want to see as the next president.
Opus Dei is a controversial Catholic organisation with schools and conference centres across the globe. Close links to the Vatican mean members are highly influential within the Catholic church. Opus Dei is Latin for “Work of God” and their aim is to help people to achieve holiness through their everyday work. The vast majority of members are lay people. Within Opus Dei, “assistant numeraries” are women responsible for cooking and cleaning in Opus Dei centres. They tend to come from poor or working-class backgrounds often recruited through hospitality schools. Former assistant numeraries say they were overworked, unpaid, isolated from their families and emotionally and spiritually abused. Many women are now speaking up and seeking justice. Journalist Antonia Cundy speaks to survivors in Latin America about their experiences.
There is virtually no state provision for victims of domestic abuse in Iraq. As a result, Iraqi women have been left to protect and support each other, organising secret shelters for survivors and trying to assemble health and legal support for victims. From inside one of the secret shelters, 22-year-old ‘Mariam’ tells the BBC’s Rebecca Kesby about the abuse she suffered at the hands of her husband and his relatives. Iraqi feminist Yanar Mohammed, who set up the first known women’s safe house in Baghdad in 2003, tells Rebecca how her work has led to death threats and law suits, forcing her into hiding. A former member of the Iraqi parliament tried in vain to force a change in the law to criminalise domestic violence, and a policewoman struggles on a daily basis to contain the rising violence in the home.
In many parts of the world there is still a fear of witches and witchcraft. Those accused are often vulnerable, yet they are blamed for a variety of afflictions, from disease to infertility and poverty. They often face persecution, abuse and lynching. From his base in Nigeria Dr Leo Igwe, after receiving tip-offs on social media, intervenes and protects those accused of witchcraft across the African continent from being attacked. He also lobbies local authorities to prevent witch-hunting drives from taking place and organises educational campaigns to counter existing occult narratives.
Amid the rubble, in makeshift tents, children in Gaza are singing - and practising the violin, guitar and traditional instruments such as the ‘oud. The sessions are organised by the local branch of the Palestinian national music conservatory, which still operates, outside its damaged premises, despite the destruction of teachers’ and students’ homes. Why - and how - do they go on singing? And what does music mean to them now? Tim Whewell reported from Gaza in 2015 on the rescue of the territory’s only concert grand piano after a previous war. Now, for Assignment, he finds out how musicians he met then are living and working through this war. He learns about a boy who started playing the violin after he lost his hand in an airstrike. And he finds out about the second near-miraculous survival of the grand piano.
Sports Banger is a fashion house, rave organisation, and London community centre run by Jonny Banger. The cornerstone of their work is bootleg T-shirts which mix satire and humour with a sportswear aesthetic. One of Sports Banger’s best-known t-shirts features two very different and well-known brands - the Nike and the UK’s National Health Service. In 2020, this simple T-shirt became highly-coveted. Selling out in minutes on limited runs during the height of the UK’s Covid lockdowns, Jonny Banger used the proceeds to set up a food bank in his neighbourhood, feeding 160 families every week for two years. Poet Talia Randall meets Jonny in his studio - Maison de Bang Bang.
Katy Fallon tells the story of the refugees and other migrants ensnared in Greece’s legal crossfire. Greek authorities routinely prosecute those found near the controls of boats carrying people trying to reach Europe, but human rights monitors assert that it is vulnerable passengers, not real smugglers, who are ending up behind bars. Katy reveals a system where chaotic trials last a matter of minutes but can result in prison sentences of hundreds of years. And she meets Akif Rasuli, a young Afghan man compensated for wrongful imprisonment after spending almost three years behind bars. Amid Europe-wide efforts to clamp down on irregular migration, are tough people smuggling policies seeing the wrong people pay a heavy price?
What do a graffiti festival, a first aid training and a football match have in common? These are all events set up by African Initiative, a Russian media organisation which defines itself as 'an information bridge between Russia and Africa'. Olaronke Alo and Maria Korenyuk from the BBC Disinformation Unit have been investigating this organisation and its activities in the Sahel region in Africa.Produced by Alice Gioia, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
When she was sworn in as Mexico’s new president, Claudia Sheinbaum pledged to tackle the country’s drug gangs. In the past couple of months, local civilian groups have reported hundreds of deaths and disappearances due to them. Hosts Mark Lowen and Krupa Padhy hear from those who just want to go about their lives and jobs in safety, but are being caught in the crossfire and sometimes even targeted. Rosa is a 15-year-old student and would like to leave it all behind but feels for now she must coexist with constant fear. We also hear from two women in Mexico’s Sinaloa state, whose loved ones are among “the disappeared”. And two journalists share the dangers and threats that go with reporting on organised crime.
A bonus episode for The Documentary from the What in the World podcast.The death of One Direction star Liam Payne has shocked the world, and there’s been a huge outpouring of grief. Many details about the British singer's death still remain unclear, but information from emergency services and other authorities has started to build a picture of the events. We know that he was in Buenos Aires, in Argentina, and died after falling from a hotel balcony.Liam rose to fame after competing in the singing competition the X Factor. It was here that he first met fellow One Direction members Harry Styles, Louis Tomlinson, Niall Horan and Zayn Malik. Entertainment reporter Bonnie McLaren reminds us of his journey to fame, and his solo projects. We also hear why he meant so much to fans globally, including 22-year-old Bintelmran in Pakistan. Plus Joshua Miles, a psychotherapist based in London, talks us through why we grieve celebs, even if we don’t know them directly. If you’ve been affected by any of the issues in this episode please contact support organisations in your own country. Or, if you live in the UK, please check out bbc.co.uk/actionline. What in the World helps you make sense of what's happening in your world. Big stories, small stories and everything in between. Understand more, feel better. Five days a week, Monday to Friday. For more episodes, just search What in the World wherever you got this podcast. Instagram: @bbcwhatintheworld
WhatsApp: +44 0330 12 33 22 6
Email: whatintheworld@bbc.co.uk
Presenter: William Lee Adams
Producers: Mora Morrison and Benita Barden
Editor: Verity Wilde
In certain cultures in Uganda and across Africa, a belief exists where departed husbands return as ethereal entities to engage in intimate encounters with their living partners. To ward off this phenomenon, women are required to perform Enkumbi. Ugandan presenter Daniel Leinhardt sets out to investigate this belief and its impact, including the role it may play in subjugating women. He from couples who see the Enkumbi rituals as something they still must perform, and women who think it's old fashioned nonsense but who still harbour the doubt of 'what if it's not?'
Until 2021, Uganda had only four paediatric surgeons and a just a few children’s hospital beds for the entire country. In 2020, the mortality rate for children under five was 43 per 1,000 births, compared to three per 1,000 in the UK. The Children’s Hospital of Entebbe, funded by the Italian NGO, Emergency, and designed by world famous architect Renzo Piano, was established in 2021 to change the situation. Ugandan Journalist Lulu Jemimah visits the hospital, on the shore of Lake Victoria, to ask whether one hospital is enough to reset the future for Uganda's children.
Egyptian billionaire Mohamed Al Fayed – former owner of one of the most famous shops in the world – is accused of rape and attempted rape by women who worked for him. For the full investigation, search for World of Secrets wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
This is a story of power and control at the very top of British society. At the time of many of the alleged attacks, Mohamed Al Fayed was the owner of London’s luxury department store Harrods, and also the iconic Ritz Paris hotel and English football club Fulham FC.
The BBC has heard testimony of over 20 women.
Harrods has condemned Al Fayed’s actions “in the strongest terms” and has told the BBC that “as a business we failed our employees who were his victims and for this we sincerely apologise.” Harrods says the organisation is different today to the one owned by Al Fayed, and it “seeks to put the welfare of our employees at the heart of everything we do.”
A wave of criminal activity in Japan has been blamed on social media. Yami Baito – meaning “dark part-time jobs” in Japanese – refers to job ads posted by criminal gangs on social media and encrypted messaging platforms including Telegram. Jobseekers are blackmailed or enticed with the promise of getting rich quick to commit a range of crimes from scamming elderly people to, at its most extreme, armed robbery. Japanese police have attempted to crack down on Yami Baito by taking down these ads and launching public awareness campaigns. But BBC Trending explores evidence that these recruiters are still operating online. We hear from someone who got sucked into Yami Baito, and a criminal mastermind in charge of recruitment.
Singapore’s drug laws are severe. The penalties for trafficking illegal narcotics range from a prison term to execution. And if you’re caught using any illicit narcotic, including cannabis, you may find yourself in compulsory rehab. In this double edition of Assignment for The Documentary, Linda Pressly’s given access to the state’s austere Drug Rehabilitation Centre. She also explores how the law on trafficking is applied, meets the sister of a man who was hung after a heroin conviction, and learns that it’s also illegal for a Singaporean to consume drugs overseas.
The Los Angeles river has been a concrete channel since the 1930s, when the US Army Corps of Engineers decided to concrete over the original river for flood mitigation. Ever since then, the river has been regularly used as a symbol of dystopia and was the backdrop in a famous scene in The Terminator. However, landscape architect Mia Lehrer wants to transform its reputation and to revitalise the river, because it is still a waterway shared by millions. This will be not be an easy task, however, as the river itself is still the property of the US Army Corps, and the river course crosses numerous bureaucratic boundaries at both the local and state level. Presenter Alan Weedon meets Mia as she describes her vision to breathe new life into an American icon.
Over the four decades since the pandemic took off, we have seen around 40 million people worldwide killed by HIV. Today, around the same number of people are living with the virus, and many of them are long-term survivors. In 2015, an end to the pandemic by 2030 was adopted as one of the ambitious UN Sustainable Development Goals and signed up to by all member states. Sue Armstrong and Noerine Kaleeba report on the impressive progress made in controlling the spread of HIV and ask whether the goal of an end to the Aids pandemic by 2030 is really possible.
The Grey Wolves, a Turkish far-right political movement, is getting increasing attention worldwide. So is their hand gesture, depicting a wolf’s head. But what makes them so controversial? Selin Girit from BBC Turkish explains.Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Commemorations took place in Israel this week to mark 7 October, 2023, when 1,200 people were killed by Hamas gunmen and 251 were taken hostage into neighbouring Gaza. Twelve months later, the bloodshed in the region has also spread to Gaza and Lebanon and Iran has been drawn into the conflict. Host Luke Jones hears from Eylon in Tel Aviv and Adam in England who are frustrated that the plight of the hostages can sometimes appear to be forgotten, especially on the global stage. He also hears what life is like for three young Israelis in their 20s and the anxiety of daily rocket strikes, explosions and gunfire.
With a global market worth more than $100 billion dollars a year, yoga is a massive industry. With its origins in India, Yoga is often considered to be part of the Hindu tradition, as well as being influenced by other religions including Buddhism and Islam. Yet with modern studios and teachers offering a plethora of styles from fitness to beer yoga, has it become disconnected from its spiritual roots? And is the surge in social media trends diluting its authenticity? Geeta Pendse meets the women on personal missions to ‘reclaim yoga’ whilst balancing the demands of business with the spiritual roots of this ancient practice.
Female con artists are exploiting superstition and family love to swindle women with Chinese heritage living in the west. The blessing scam is an elaborate piece of criminal street theatre, which over the last few months has claimed victims across North America and the UK. It begins with an apparently random meeting with a stranger in the street, and very quickly escalates from there. Victims are tricked out of their money and possessions, after being terrified into believing that a relative’s life is threatened by evil spirits. Are the criminals just master manipulators, or could something even more sinister be involved? Now a social media activist is fighting back and trying to put the crooks out of business.
Joining Mishal Husain are Jeremy Bowen, the BBC's International Editor; Lord Ricketts, who served as a British diplomat for many years including being on the Foreign office Middle East desk during Israel’s invasion of Lebanon in 1982; Afif Safieh, former Palestinian Head of Mission in London, Washington, D.C. and Moscow; Ehud Olmert, who was Israeli Prime Minister from 2006 to 2009; Ambassador David Satterfield, who until earlier this year was US Special Envoy for Middle East Humanitarian Issues and Dr. Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa Programme at Chatham House.
A bonus episode from the People Fixing the World podcast. Concerns are growing about the effects of smartphones on both adults and children, so we're looking at ways to reduce our dependence on these ubiquitous devices.Presenter Myra Anubi attempts to ditch her smartphone for a week, while she finds out about a fast-growing campaign in which local parents get together to agree to delay buying them for their children. But Myra and her own daughter don't quite see eye-to-eye on the topic.Plus Anna Holligan visits an innovative project called The Offline Club in Amsterdam, where people hand in their phones in exchange for a dose of good old real-life interaction.People Fixing the World is a weekly programme looking at common challenges around the world and the creative ways people are trying to tackle them.
Discover more of the people and projects trying to make the world a better place at bbcworldservice.com/peoplefixingtheworld or, just search for People Fixing the World wherever you got this podcast. Presenter: Myra Anubi
Producer: William Kremer
Netherlands reporter: Anna Holligan
Editor: Jon Bithrey
Sound mix: Hal Haines
Lyse Doucet reflects on some of the biggest moments from this conflict with BBC colleagues Jeremy Bowen, Anna Foster and Rushdi Abualouf, who have been reporting from around the region and they discuss what could happen next in the Middle East. for more search The Conflict wherever you get your BBC
podcasts
Gary O'Donoghue meets local newspaper editors in America to hear about the challenge of reporting during a divisive presidential election campaign. In Kansas, Gary visits Eric Meyer, the owner and editor of the Marion County Record. In August 2023 the paper’s offices, and the home of its 90-year-old owner, Eric’s mother Joan, were raided by the town's five person police department. A "good old fashioned newspaper war" has been playing out in Westcliffe, Colorado, where Gary meets Jordan Hedberg, editor of the Wet Mountain Tribune. In the same town, the Sangre de Cristo Sentinel, promises “a different view from the same mountains”. Gary also hears about how trust in local news, which has traditionally played a big part in local politics, is being eroded.
Rampant abuse and 'mafia' style intimidations: these are the conditions thousands of women working in one of India's film industries allegedly faced for years. Following a damning report into Kerala’s Malayalam-language movie scene, BBC India reporter Sumedha Pal has been talking to actors, directors and producers to understand what's going on, and how the MeToo movement has changed the working environment for women in the wider Indian film industry. Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
On 7 October 2023, Hamas gunmen attacked Israel, killing 1,200 people and taking 250 more hostage. Israel responded with airstrikes and by sending troops into Gaza. The aim was to destroy Hamas’s military and governing capabilities and to secure the release of the hostages. The impact in Gaza has been devastating. Thousands of people have been killed. The United Nations estimates that around 90% of Palestinians have had to leave their homes and are now living in temporary accommodation. We begin with the stories and words of three Palestinian women, whose lives we have been tracking through voice messages.
Peter Adamski seemed to have it all. At 19, he had met Kathy, the love of his life and the woman he would marry. In his 20s, he landed a prestigious job with the pharmaceutical giant Johnson & Johnson, jetting around the world in first class for business meetings. He had a healthy baby boy, John, his wealth soared into the millions, and he owned three houses. He was living the American dream. But everything changed when he and Kathy received the news from a doctor: "Kathy, you have early-onset Alzheimer’s." The future they had envisioned together was abruptly replaced by the prospect of a long, painful farewell. After Kathy’s passing, Peter felt as though he had lost all sense of meaning - until one night, he felt a profound call from God. At 65, he became a Catholic priest, and he believes his life has never been more fulfilling.
A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast. British-Iranian Anoosheh Ashoori spent years in one of Iran’s toughest prisons after being snatched off the street by security forces. He was falsely accused of espionage, but realised he'd become a pawn in a game of global politics.
For more extraordinary personal stories from around the world, go to bbcworldservice.com/liveslessordinary or search for Live Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.Presenter: Mobeen Azhar
Producer: Harry Graham
In May, riots broke out in the French overseas territory of New Caledonia - a group of islands in the South Pacific. Protesters were calling for independence from the European nation that has ruled the archipelago for more than a century and a half. Amid the violence came an unusual claim - that Azerbaijan, a seemingly disconnected nation thousands of miles from both Paris and the Pacific Ocean - was stoking the violence online. BBC Trending asks if there is any truth to the claim. And if so, what might Azerbaijan be hoping to achieve?
Jakarta is facing all sorts of problems - deadly floods, land subsidence, extreme pollution, notorious traffic and overcrowding. Indonesia’s outgoing president has come up with an extreme solution: moving the country’s capital a thousand kilometres away, to the middle of the rainforest. Will the new city be a futuristic utopia and a model for sustainable urbanisation - or an eye-wateringly expensive, ecologically disastrous ghost town? BBC Indonesia reporter Astudestra Ajengrastri travels to the island of Borneo to find out if the ambitious plans will live up to reality.
Panama is one of the wettest countries in the world. It also has a world famous shipping canal which earns it billions of dollars a year. With big money and high rainfall combined, it should be straightforward to meet the water needs of its four million plus people.But hundreds of thousands of Panamanians don’t have access to piped water. With a growing population and a drought, last year the Canal Authority reduced the number of ships passing through by a third, losing it and the country hundreds of millions of dollars in revenue. The Authority says this was done to protect drinking water for the 2.5 million people who rely on the same water supply the Canal uses to work its massive locks. With uncertainty over the impact of climate change, Panamanians are asking whether there’ll be enough fresh water to satisfy the enormous demand from the canal’s locks with the basic need to have regular access to clean water. Jane Chambers travels to Panama to meet the people involved in the struggles for access to water.
Ian Rankin has been called “the king of crime fiction”. His Inspector Rebus books have sold more than 30 million copies worldwide, translated into 37 languages. And yet, as he embarks on writing the next in his series, he reveals that “sitting down and actually writing the books is hard… and it's not getting any easier.” Where does he begin and where might the series end? Recorded across Scotland over several months, we follow Ian Rankin as he gets his next novel into shape.
Ian Rankin is on a deadline to complete his next Inspector Rebus thriller. He is happy with the first draft: “at the moment, it is perfect!”. But what will others make of it? In the second of two episodes recorded across Scotland over several months, we follow the bestselling crime writer to the remote, coastal town of Cromarty. He comes here to escape reality, and to write without distraction. But on this occasion, there is a crime fiction festival taking place. Will he get any work done?
On October 1st, Claudia Sheinbaum will take office and become Mexico's first female president. What will her presidency look like? With Laura García from BBC Mundo and Luis Fajardo from BBC Monitoring. Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
The escalating conflict between Hezbollah in Lebanon and Israel is being described as one of the most intense in recent times. The current fighting has been taking place since October last year with the start of the conflict in Gaza. There have been hundreds of deaths in the past couple of weeks, thousands of injuries and tens of thousands of people have been forced to flee their homes. In our conversations, we talk with two doctors in Beirut who treated victims of the exploding pagers and walkie-talkies that targeted Hezbollah operatives. We also bring together people in southern Lebanon, including Zaahra who is reluctant to leave her home despite bombardment by Israeli forces. “It’s our land, it’s where we grew up,” she tells host Luke Jones.
In Turkey's largest city, Istanbul, queues of people of all faiths visit a Greek Orthodox Church on the first day of each month to make a wish. Emily Wither spoke to devotees who shared their hopes and desires, as they stood patiently in long lines. No one knows exactly how the tradition started, but visitors take a gold key and descend the stairs to the underground Byzantine chapel to visit an ancient spring believed to have miraculous and spiritual powers. Once their wish comes true, they return the key to the church, who pass it on to others wishing for good luck.
A bonus episode from The Inquiry. Just over three years ago the Taliban seized Kabul and stormed to power in Afghanistan. They soon declared a new government which is still not recognised by any other country. The Taliban claim they have made improvements to the country. War is over and, they say, there is more peace and security than before they came to power. But millions of people are struggling to survive in the country, there is a restrictive rule of law that is imposed by a very hierarchical government structure and half the population need aid. This week on The Inquiry we’re asking ‘How are the Taliban governing Afghanistan?’ The Inquiry gets beyond the headlines to explore the trends, forces and ideas shaping the world. For more episodes just search for The Inquiry wherever you get your BBC Podcasts. Presenter: Emily Wither
Producers: Louise Clarke and Matt Toulson
Editor: Tara McDermott T
echnical Producers: Nicky Edwards and Cameron Ward
Contributors: Dr Weeda Mehran, co-director for Advanced Internationalist studies at Exeter University Graeme Smith, senior analyst for the International Crisis Group Dr Orzala Nemet, research associate at ODI Overseas Development Institute Javid Ahmad, non-resident scholar at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC
A bonus episode from The Climate Question podcast.BBC Climate Editor Justin Rowlatt travels to Somalia to investigate the links between global warming and the decades-long conflict there. He hears how Somalis are responding by launching businesses and their own renewables industry.For more episodes on the issues facing our planet and how we might combat them, just search for The Climate Question wherever you get your BBC podcasts. Presenter: Justin Rowlatt
Producer in Somalia: Stuart Phillips
Producers in London: Miho Tanaka, Sara Hegarty
Sound Mix: Tom Brignell and David Crackles
Editor: Simon Watts
What do Hollywood legend Leo DiCaprio, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg, and English zoologist Jane Goodall have in common? They have all taken to social media to call for the protection of the Masungi Georeserve, a popular ecotourism destination in the Philippines. This comes after the Philippine government proposed scrapping a contract with the reserve that handed it control over 2,700 hectares of land for reforestation purposes. As public debate rages on, BBC Trending has uncovered evidence of an online disinformation campaign targeting the nature reserve’s keepers. But who is the puppet master pulling the strings from the shadows?
The US ‘pro-life’ movement has gained ground in recent years, with courts overturning women’s right to an abortion and questioning the legality of IVF fertility treatments. The question at the heart of the debate is when does life begin? ‘Pro-life’ has become synonymous with evangelical Christianity - often considered a powerful voting bloc in America. But how united are Christian preachers? And what does this tell us about the upcoming election? Ellie House reports from the divided churches in the swing state of Michigan.
Erdem Moralıoğlu is one of the UK’s most admired and creative fashion designers. Born in Canada to a Turkish father and British mother, he studied fashion at the Royal College of Art and went on to found his eponymous label in 2005. He has dressed the Princess of Wales, Michelle Obama and Nicole Kidman. His Spring Summer 2024 collection was inspired by the the late Dowager Duchess of Devonshire, also known as Debo, one of the famous Mitford sisters - the ‘It’ girls of the 1930s and '40s. Working closely with Susie Stokoe, head of textiles at Chatsworth House, Erdem has drawn on his own designs and many of the Duchess’ clothes and created an exhibition called Imaginary Conversations. Belinda Naylor meets Erdem at his studio in east London to discuss his inspirations and visits Chatsworth House to observe the installation of the exhibition.
Amid the 2015 migrant crisis, when millions of refugees were seeking safety in Europe, Germany’s then Chancellor, Angela Merkel, took an extraordinary step to take in more than a million asylum seekers, mostly from the Middle East. She famously declared, “Wir Schaffen Das” - We can do it. Now, almost 10 years on, many from this generation of refugees are living settled lives in Germany and a recent liberalisation in German citizenship law means they are now eligible for citizenship, giving them a vote in where Germany goes from here. But it is a fraught time to become German. The AfD, a far right party harshly opposed to immigration of all kinds, is rising in popularity, especially in the former East. Damien McGuinness meets former refugees now on a path to citizenship, and finds out what this piece of paper means to them.
Pavel Kushnir was a classical pianist. But according to Russian authorities, he was also a dangerous dissident. In July 2024, he died on hunger strike in a remote prison in Far East Russia. Who was Pavel Kushnir, and why did he end up in jail? Liza Fokht from BBC Russian has been trying to piece together Pavel Kushnir’s story.Produced by Alice Gioia, Caroline Ferguson and Hannah Dean.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
The rock legend Jon Bon Jovi made headlines around the world and earned much praise after he was seen helping a distressed woman on the ledge of a bridge in Nashville, Tennessee. He approached her, talked to her, and gave her a warm hug after she climbed back to safety. “What I’ve noticed is the most potent medicine that I can give somebody is a caring heart and a hug in their times of trial,” says first responder Marc Maikoski who has been involved in many such incidents in his own area in California. Marc and our other guests discuss how “seeing” an individual can be the crucial moment for a person in a dark moment and how the intervention of a stranger, who takes the time and shows the courage to talk, can turn a situation around.
Bara’atu Ibrahim speaks to Jibra’il Omar, formerly Timothy Weeks; an Australian educator who was held captive for three years in Afghanistan by the Taliban. However, Jibra’il Omar made news six years ago, after he converted to Islam whilst in captivity, and astonishingly went back to Afghanistan after his release. Over a period of some months, Bara’atu built up a relationship with Jibra’il over a messaging service whilst he was in Kabul. She spoke to him on two occasions, where he shared his story and gives the reasons of why he decided it was right for him to become a Muslim, and moreover celebrate with his captors once they came back into power.
China's Belt and Road Initiative stretches physically with infrastructure projects across the globe, but there is one initiative that is the most ambitious yet - The Space Silk Road. The space race is heating up with new entrants like India and private companies like SpaceX, but it is the Chinese who are set to dominate by 2045. Central to the Space Silk Road is a controversial station in Patagonia, Argentina. The Espacio Lejano Ground Station has a powerful 16-story antenna, with an 8-foot barbed wire fence that surrounds the entire compound. Katy Watson asks astronomers, space engineers and Argentinian residents, how President Xi's Space Silk Road is impacting their universe.
The Iranian government is not coy about its silence tactics. Since Iran's Woman Life Freedom Movement began on 16 September 2022, unlawful executions, imprisonment, physical and sexual abuse has dominated headlines across the globe. It is estimated that tens of thousands of people have received some form of government retribution – and at the heart of it is a complex surveillance system that aids security forces in its endeavours. The Supreme Cyber Council oversees digital rule in the country, and combined with FATA (the Cyber police), BASIJ (volunteer law enforcement working with Iran’s security forces) and surveillance spy software amongst other things, clamping down on dissent has never been easier. We speak to the women on the digital frontline between the state and their communities, investigate how court summons are issued based on social media posts and talk to experts about Iran’s surveillance tactics.
Johnny, Rocky and Rambo were performers in the world’s last travelling dolphin circus and inside a Bali hotel swimming pool. This is the story of the fight to shut the circus down and the long journey to try to return the performing dolphins to the ocean. We hear why the world’s most famous dolphin trainer changed sides - playing a role instead in the fight for their freedom. It is the story of how Femke Den Haas, the Indonesian campaign director of the Dolphin Project, teamed up with former trainer Ric O'Barry.
Industrialisation, modern cityscapes and strong economic growth promote an image of a youthful, vigorous Malaysia. But the country is now ageing rapidly, and this sudden transformation seems to have caught many - including the government - by surprise: Despite their country’s development, millions have little or no retirement income and face destitution or dependence in their golden years. What little provision is available was compromised during the Covid pandemic when the government allowed workers to withdraw retirement funds just to survive lockdown. Those who did so can now have almost nothing left in their accounts. Without any universal pension, many older Malaysians rely on their families – but younger relatives are often struggling in a low wage economy and find it increasingly difficult to provide for anyone but themselves. As Claire Bolderson reports, Malaysians may have to change their attitudes to retirement and to saving if they are to avoid the spectre of serious poverty in old age.
Frank McWeeny heads to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, to meet the underground music community leading protests against government clampdown on freedom of expression and civil society groups. How vital is dancing in a country going through the biggest political and social crisis of its generation? We hear from the city most important techno club Bassiani, militant radio station and event space Mutant Radio, and members of the nightlife scene.
Peruvian singer Lenin Tamayo has been dubbed the founder of ‘Q-pop’. He combines traditional Andean folk music with K-pop inspired instrumentation and dance. His songs mix Quechua – one of Peru’s indigenous languages, and the official tongue of the Inca Empire – and Spanish. Lenin first launched his career when his videos went viral on TikTok. Now, he’s working on his second EP. It’s a sweltering day in bustling Lima, and presenter Martin Riepl heads up to the North of the city. Lenin’s in his studio, wrestling with his new song, ‘La Llaqta’. Over the next five months, Martin follows this song’s journey from initial concept to live performance. He visits Lenin at home, backstage, in a storyboarding meeting, and at a dance rehearsal, uncovering Lenin’s process of fusing two very different musical styles. Presented by Martin Riepl
Africa is home to around one-third of the world's languages, but only a smattering of them are available online and in translation software. So when young Beninese computer scientist Bonaventure Dossou, who was fluent in French, experienced difficulties communicating with his mother, who spoke the local language Fon, he came up with an idea. Bonaventure and a friend developed a French to Fon translation app, with speech recognition functionality, using an old missionary bible and volunteer questionnaires as the source data. Although rudimentary, they put the code online as open-source to be used by others. Bonaventure has since joined with other young African computer scientists and language activists called Masakane to use this code and share knowledge to increase digital accessibility for African and other lower-resourced languages. They want to be able to communicate across the African continent using translation software, with the ultimate goal being an "African Babel Fish", a simultaneous speech-to-speech translation for African languages. James Jackson explores what role their ground-breaking software could play for societies in Africa disrupted by language barriers. A Whistledown production for BBC World Service Photo: A woman using a mobile phone Credit: Getty Images
Why are exams so stressful? Chinese journalists Wanqing Zhang and Eric Junzhe share personal memories about the infamous Gaokao exam in China, which this year reached a record of 13.42 million applicants; and India correspondent Soutik Biswas reports on the exam scandals threatening the future of millions of young people in India. Plus: why do we have recurring nightmares about exams? Caroline Steel from CrowdScience has the answer. If you also have questions about exams, email them to crowdscience@bbc.co.uk. Produced by Caroline Ferguson, Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
For millions of us, our phones or computers are the first place we go to look for romance. Dating apps are a multi-billion dollar business, and for a good few years it’s been booming. But recently there’s been discussion about whether they’re in decline, with fewer downloads and some regular users saying they feel burned out by their experiences on them. For some, the novelty has just worn off. Others have been put off by interactions with people they’ve been matched with. Host Luke Jones hears from three people who have decided they don’t want to meet people this way any more. Faith, a 27-year old Nigerian woman living in the UK says the final straw for her came when her date phoned her to arrange where to meet. “I could hear a girl’s voice in the background. I said ‘Who is that?’ and he said, "That’s my girlfriend, she stays with me". "He said oh they’re just going through a separation just now so they decided to take a break so he decided to download a dating app." On the other hand, there are success stories. Dyuti in India wrote a dating app profile specially designed to filter out all non-suitable matches, then met and instantly clicked with the man who’s now her fiancé. Victor and Tricia are another happy couple, and would never have met without a dating app, since they were living thousands of miles apparent when they first met digitally. Tricia was astonished that Victor, a Londoner, was prepared to fly to Singapore to meet her, “If guys from the same country I was living in would not make that much effort into meeting me, why would someone from 10,000km away, fly all the way over to see me?” They’d got on well online, and got on even better face to face, and were married a year later. A Boffin Media production in partnership with the OS team. (Photo: Faith. Credit: Faith)
Ibiza is an island of contrasts. A place which triggers thoughts of raucous partying, superstar DJs and excess. But it's also an area of raw natural beauty, rugged hills, with a rich spiritual history. No-one knows this duality better than Kim Booth - she's experienced both faces of the Balearic paradise island. Kim first visited as a party go-er tourist and 30 years on, she’s now a resident offering an alternative side to Ibiza. This tiny island island swells from a few hundred thousand residents, to over a million when tourists flock there over the summer months. But what pressure does this put on the people and the nature of Ibiza? After working in PR and for some of the biggest names in the music industry like superclub Pacha and dance label Defected Records, Kim chose a different path. Facing personal traumas in her life with the loss of her mum and her brother being murdered, Kim turned away from the parties and discovered the Red Road indigenous teachings. After experiencing this wisdom in Central and South America, her life mission changed. She brings healers and musicians from around the world to provide an alternative experience for those looking to “go inwards” - on an island full of people “losing themselves.” But is it realistic to unite these two worlds together in one of the busiest, commercial hotspots in the world? Reporter Amber Haque travels to Ibiza to witness the coming together of ancient, indigenous practices, on the tourist-packed island that is full of modern conflicts. Presenter: Amber Haque
Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Editor: Miriam Williamson
Production Coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
The BBC's Disinformation and Social Media Correspondent, Marianna Spring, speaks to parents, teenagers and social media company insiders to investigate whether the content pushed to their feeds is harming them. We hear what happens when two teens give up their phones for the week, and ask: should teenagers give up their smartphones?
The Peregrine Falcon is not only the fastest animal on our planet, but also the most widely distributed bird of prey, found on every continent apart from Antarctica.In the 1960s Falco Peregrinus was close to extinction, but it has since made a remarkable comeback, hailed as a global success story of conservation.Recent decades have also seen the trend of this speedy raptor notably settling, nesting and flourishing alongside us, in man-made environments around the globe.Broadcaster, naturalist and writer David Lindo, a.k.a. ‘The Urban Birder’ travels from a hospital in London to a museum in Madrid and a power station in Kentucky, to explore how an iconic, apex predator is bouncing back from the brink, thriving in cities and towns across the world.Along the way David highlights their incredible hunting ability and how both our responsibility for the decline of the Peregrine and our pervading fondness for it, have helped to contribute to its astounding recovery.Image: Getty images
For the last thirty years Indian journalist Amitabh Parashar has been investigating why a group of midwives in his home state of Bihar were routinely forced to kill baby girls. In a series of shocking interviews, the midwives explain what happened and how a remarkable social worker brought change. Together they began to save baby girls destined to be killed. Decades later BBC Eye finds a woman, who was possibly one of the girls. What will happen when she returns to meet the only surviving midwife? A warning, this program includes upsetting content. The Midwife’s Confession was produced by Anubha Bhonsle, Purnima Mehta, Debangshu Roy, Neha Tara Mehta, Annabel Deas, Rob Wilson and Ahmen Khawaja. The editors were Daniel Adamson and Rebecca Henschke. It was mixed by Neva Missirian. Image credit: BBC Eye
From the journey from cocoa to chocolate in Ivory Coast. The price of cocoa - the essential ingredient in chocolate - has more than quadrupled on the international market in the last two years. Yet many of those growing it have not benefitted. In fact, drought, disease and a lack of investment have led to catastrophic harvests and, therefore, a drop in income for many small producers of cocoa, especially in Ivory Coast. This West African country is the world’s largest producer of cocoa - up to 45% of the world’s total. Most of the growers are small-scale, poor farmers. There are now calls for these growers to get a bigger chunk of the chocolate bar and, in so doing, to help ensure future production. John Murphy travels to Ivory Coast to delve into the world of chocolate production.
Tuan Andrew Nguyen, who was born in Vietnam in 1976, was only two years old when his family were made refugees by the war. They ended up in Texas, in the US and in his early twenties, he decided to return to the city his parents had once fled. Here in Ho Chi Minh City, formerly known as Saigon, Tuan has become an artist of many mediums. Telling stories through film, sculpture and installations, his work often explores how memories haunt the present and the power of art to heal. Reporter Eliza Lomas joins Tuan in his home studio and workshop, as he shares his process for creating an ongoing series of resonant mobile sculptures. Made from once highly explosive bomb material left over from the war, Tuan reflects on how beliefs in animism and reincarnation inform his work, and why he’s drawn to transforming these objects of war, which are still excavated on a daily basis in Vietnam, into resonant sculptures of peace.
A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast.In 1982 Mississippi, two boys, Chris Strompolos and Eric Zala, aged 10 and 11, embarked on a crazy mission: to remake Indiana Jones Raiders of the Lost Ark, shot-for-shot in their back garden - and the long-forgotten tape that resulted would decades later end up bringing them face-to-face with one of their heroes.For more extraordinary personal stories from around the world, go to bbcworldservice.com/liveslessordinary or search for Live Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.Presenter: India Rakusen
Producer: Edgar Maddicott
Why are people in Pakistan struggling to use messaging apps and social media? BBC Urdu's editor Asif Farooqi explains why this might be more than just a simple internet glitch. Plus, we hear from colleagues who speak Spanish, Arabic and Bulgarian about their favourite filler words and sounds.Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
Mpox causes a headache, fever and a blistering rash all over the body. There have been more than 1,200 cases in parts of Central and West Africa since the start of this year. The milder version is now circulating in other parts of the world but the much stronger, possibly deadlier strain, called Clade 1b is also on the rise. A few weeks ago, the World Health Organisation announced that mpox constituted a public health emergency of international concern after an upsurge of cases in the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) and other countries in Africa. Host Luke Jones brings together survivors from the UK and Nigeria to share their experiences. “I thought that I was dying,” said Harun in London. “Nobody knew what it was and I was getting worse every day. I remember looking at a bottle of water and I started crying because I wasn’t able to drink.” We also hear from three doctors about some of the challenges they face - from a mistrust in medical professionals, to a belief that mpox is not caused by a virus and so doesn’t require hospital treatment. “An elderly man started developing symptoms but felt his symptoms were not due to any pathogen but due to a spiritual attack,” said Dr Dimie Ogoina, from the Niger Delta Teaching hospital. A co-production between Boffin Media and the BBC OS team. (Photo: Elisabeth Furaha applies medication on the skin of her child Sagesse Hakizimana who is under treatment for Mpox, near Goma in North Kivu province of the Democratic Republic of Congo August 19, 2024. Credit: Arlette Bashizi/File Photo/Reuters)
Dr Aleksandra Janus is a Polish Cultural Anthropologist with a Jewish background from Warsaw, Poland. Living in the capital flattened by Nazi bombs and then recreated by Communism, her multi-layered identity has always conjured mixed feelings about former Jewish memory and cultural spaces. As President of the organisation, Zapomniane Foundation (which means forgotten in English), one of her jobs is to trace mass graves in forests, cityscapes and death camps across the country in cooperation with local villagers, WWII survivors and non-invasive scanning technologies. Alerted by her friend Karolina Jakoweńko, she's come across an interesting proposition – an historic synagogue in the area of Poland that belonged to Germany before WWII. Once owned by a thriving Jewish community who were exterminated by the Nazis, now decades later the synagogue is in the hands of a private owner and Jewish people no longer live in the village. Synagogues in Germany were at first destroyed by the Nazis but not this synagogue – it miraculously survived. So, she's trying to grapple with the idea - does she buy a synagogue back to revive it or leave it where it belongs - in the past. The BBC’s Amie Liebowitz travels across Poland to explore the daily life of Aleksandra and her quest to both bury the dead and re-sanctify spaces. Driving through cities, forests and villages in between, Amie and Aleksandra alongside her colleagues unpacks what this purchase could look like and what post-Jewish, post-German spaces represent in modern Poland. Presenter/ Reporter: Amie Liebowitz
In a bonus episode from CrowdScience - How do fish survive in the deep ocean?When listener Watum heard about the Titan submersible implosion in the news in 2023, a question popped up in his mind: if a machine that we specifically built for this purpose cannot sustain the water pressure of the deep ocean, how do fish survive down there? In this episode, we travel with marine biologist Alan Jamieson to the second deepest place in our oceans: the Tonga trench. Meanwhile, presenter Caroline Steel speaks to Edie Widder about the creatures that illuminate our oceans, and travels to Copenhagen to take a closer look one of the strangest deep sea creatures and its deep sea adaptations. But even fish have their limits! Scientist Paul Yancey correctly predicted the deepest point that fish can live, and it all comes down to one particular molecule. So is there anything living beyond these depths? Well, there is only one way to find out…CrowdScience takes your questions about life, Earth and the universe to researchers hunting for answers at the frontier of knowledge. For more episodes just search for CrowdScience wherever you got this podcast. Contributors: Prof Alan Jamieson, University of Western Australia Luke Siebermaier, Submersible Team Leader, Inkfish Dr Edie Widder, Ocean Research & Conservation Association Peter Rask Møller, Natural History Museum of Denmark Prof Paul Yancey, Whitman College Presenter: Caroline Steel
Producer: Florian Bohr
Editor: Martin Smith & Cathy Edwards
Production Co-ordinator: Ishmael Soriano
Studio Manager: Steve Greenwood (Image: Deep-sea fish - stock photo, Credit: superjoseph via Getty Images)
For more than six months, a BBC Eye team has been investigating extremist settlers establishing a new type of illegal settlement known as a “herding outpost”.
Some have been sanctioned by the UK and US governments for forcing Palestinians from their homes as part of a “campaign of violence and intimidation”.
In this documentary we tell the story of the Palestinian communities living on the frontline of their outposts.
We expose how some of these settlers have been supported by two powerful organisations in Israel, one which describes itself as “an arm of the Israeli state”.Image credit: BBC Eye
The once glamorous Cypriot beach resort of Varosha has stood empty and frozen in time since war divided the island 50 years ago, but it is now partially open to tourists and there are hotly contested plans for its renewal.Maria Margaronis speaks to Varosha's former inhabitants - mostly Greek Cypriots - who fled in 1974 when Turkish troops invaded the island and have been unable to return ever since, after Turkey fenced off the town as a bargaining chip for future peace negotiations.Some of these Varoshians want to rebuild the resort together with the island's Turkish Cypriots - a potential model for diffusing hostilities across the whole island - and the UN says its original inhabitants must be allowed to return. But, following decades of failed peace talks, the internationally unrecognised Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, which controls Varosha, now says it intends to re-open and redevelop the entire town.
Frank McWeeny heads to Georgia’s capital Tbilisi, to meet the underground music community leading protests against government clampdown on freedom of expression and civil society groups. How vital is dancing in a country going through the biggest political and social crisis of its generation? We hear from the city most important techno club Bassiani, militant radio station and event space Mutant Radio, and members of the nightlife scene.Photo of Bassiani club main room, taken in 2019. Credit: Bassiani.
American artist Laurie Anderson is putting the finishing touches to her new album Amelia at Miraval Studios in southern France. This is Laurie's first record in six years, and she tells the story of renowned female aviator Amelia Earhart’s tragic last flight in 1937. Earhart’s plane disappeared without trace over the Pacific as she attempted to circumnavigate the globe. The fate of Amelia and her navigator Fred Noonan became one of the most enduring mysteries of the last century. This 22-track album has been almost 25 years in the making, and Laurie has come to Miraval Studios in southern France to work with Emmy-winning sound engineer Damien Quintard. We go behind the scenes as they collaborate on a complex mix, which includes the Filharmonie Brno orchestra, a string trio and other solo musicians.
Kavita Puri goes to India to meet the last survivors of the 1943 Bengal famine. She looks for traces of how war and famine impacted Kolkata and then travels from the city along the road to where the story of famine begins. Kavita goes deep into the countryside and the jungle in West Bengal to find people who lived through that devastating time more than 80 years ago. For the past year and a half Kavita has been asking why there is no memorial to the three million people who died. But then in the Bengal jungle she finally finds it – and it’s not what she expected.
Could a cup of coffee become an act of love and remembrance? BBC Ukrainian's Ilona Hromliuk speaks to the relatives of fallen soldiers who have opened 'memory cafés' to pay tribute to their loved ones. Plus, Alfred Lasteck from BBC Africa tells us about a pioneering conservation project that helped restore the coral reef around the Mnemba island in Zanzibar, and sports journalist Emmanuel Akindubuwa meets the power couple of Nigerian para table tennis. Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
The withdrawal of US troops in 2021 prompted the collapse of the Afghan military, an interim government and then a power grab by the hardline Islamist regime. Since then there have been increasingly harsh restrictions on everything from freedom of movement to clothing. Women and girls are now longer able to attend school after the age of 12 or university and must not speak in public. Host Luke Jones brings together three women in Kabul and in the nearby Ghazni province to hear about their lives, ambitions and how the latest laws make them feel.
Twenty years ago, reporter Julia Paul was teaching media to young women in an Afghanistan where the Taliban were in retreat, if only temporarily. Now she has tracked down two of them again to find out how their lives have fared in the decades since. Some have fled abroad while others are still in Afghanistan, imprisoned in their homes. But even for those who have escaped, life is far from easy. As one of the army of secular western aid workers that flooded Afghan society all those years ago, Julia discusses with the women whether or not the West should have intervened in the first place.
One of the highlights of the Paralympics is wheelchair tennis and one of its true champions is Kgothatso Montjane. KG, as she likes to be known, was born with amniotic band syndrome, a condition that prevents limbs from developing properly. It did not stop her from pursuing her dreams. In 2021 KG became the first black South African to compete at Wimbledon. She tells the story of her life and career, the big successes and the challenges she faced. She speaks to Brad Parks, who co-invented the game, and Shingo Kunieda, regarded to be the best male player of all time, former champion Jordanne Whiley, and KG’s hero Esther Vergeer.
Hezbollah has both political and military wings both of which are designated by several countries as terror organisations. It emerged several decades ago in Lebanon.Since Israel launched its war in Gaza in the wake of the Hamas attacks of October 7th, it has intensified its military activities along the border between Israel and Lebanon.The persistent question has been what is it trying to achieve? Are the attacks intended as a show of support for the Palestinians in Gaza or an attempt to take advantage of Israel’s diverted military focus? And could this dangerous front lead to an all-out war in the Middle East?This week on the Inquiry we are asking: What does Hezbollah want?Contributors:
Aurélie Daher, Associate Professor in political science at the University Paris-Dauphine
Lina Khatib, Associate Fellow with the Middle East and North Africa program at Chatham House
Dr Bashir Saade, Lecturer of Politics and Religion at the University of Stirling in Scotland
Mehran Kamrava, Professor of government at Georgetown University in QatarPresenter: Tanya Beckett
Why Armenians in Jerusalem say they are fighting an existential battle.
Is the identity of the Old City of Jerusalem changing - house by house? This small patch of land is of vital importance to Christians, Muslims and Jews alike. But, amid accusations of dodgy deals, corruption and trickery, there are concerns that the Old City’s historic multi-ethnic and multi-religious identity is being altered. In the Armenian Quarter a battle is going on for the control of land which the local community says is essential to its well-being and even its survival. Emily Wither visits one of the most contested cities in the world.
Daniel Libeskind is one of the world's leading architects. Amongst his many projects, he devised the masterplan for the redevelopment of Ground Zero in New York and designed the Jewish Museum in Berlin. He tells Samira Ahmed about the Albert Einstein House in Jerusalem, a new building which will house Einstein's work and belongings, from his favourite novels, his letters as a peace campaigner, to his papers laying out his famous theory of relativity. He also talks Samira through the many other global projects he is working on, including a museum of anthropology in Iquique, Chile.
Deepthi Jeevanji grew up in a rural Indian village where she was bullied and mocked for being different. In Paris this summer, she will become India’s first ever Paralympian with an intellectual impairment. After winning 400m gold at this year’s World Para Athletics Championships, she may also come home with a medal. Dan Pepper, a British ex-Paralympic swimmer who has an intellectual disability, travels to India to meet Deepthi, her parents, and the team around her, as well as speaking to others across the world about the challenges facing athletes with an intellectual impairment.
In 2022, the city of Bakhmut in Eastern Ukraine was attacked by Russian forces. The fight for Bakhmut lasted over 10 months and claimed the lives of thousands of people on both sides, becoming the longest and bloodiest battle in this war so far. But why was this sleepy town such an important target for Russia? And what role did the mercenary Wagner group play there? BBC Russian’s Olga Ivshina and Ukrainecast presenter Vitaly Shevchenko investigate. Produced by Alice Gioia and Hannah Dean. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
The recent rape and murder of a trainee doctor after a 36-hour hospital shift has, according to India’s top court, “shocked the conscience of the nation". It has produced protests, strikes and outrage and has focussed conversations on what it is like to be female in India, both at work and during everyday life. Arunima, for instance, lives close to the hospital, in Kolkata, where the murder happened. For her, even travelling on public transport has been traumatising after being touched inappropriately by another passenger. “That person was a father,” she said. “He had his own daughter literally sitting right on his lap". Host Luke Jones also hears from women doctors about security issues at their own hospitals in Ahmedabad, Gujarat - such as inadequate facilities to change scrubs or to sleep after long shifts. And two men share their thoughts on what is to blame for how some Indian men treat women and what changes they feel need to be made.
Pope Francis was hailed as a reformist when he became Pope in 2013. He vowed to get a handle on the scandals plaguing the Catholic Church, including how the Vatican managed its money. In 2015, he appointed the Vatican's first ever auditor, former Deloitte CEO and chairman Libero Milone. Along with his business partner, they went through the various Vatican departments checking the books, but came up against resistance from the 'old guard'. In one Vatican office in particular, Milone claims he met strong opposition when trying to audit their accounts. Eventually he claims being forced to resign because he was starting to uncover major financial irregularities. A few years after he was forced out, a high ranking Cardinal, Angelo Becciu, was found guilty in a Vatican court of embezzlement and fraud, for losing the Vatican over €100 million in a London property investment. Now Milone is taking a €9.3m lawsuit against the Vatican for unfair dismissal, loss of income, and emotional distress. Colm Flynn went to meet Libero Milone in Rome. LIbero says he took on the job as a way of giving back to his Church, and, driven by his faith.
For every 10 babies born across the world one will be preterm and the fate of these tiny babies is often very uncertain. They are kept alive by science, care, and luck. Time in a neonatal unit can be a stressful and unpredictable time. We meet the people who are creating equipment and aids to create a kinder experience for both parents and babies alike to give them a better start in life. People like the founder of the Danish Octo Project, which kickstarted a movement across the world crocheting tiny Octopus toys to emulate the umbilical cord for premature babies, the engineer who kept her baby alive when the neonatal unit housing her son lost power in a devastating storm, leading to a remarkable invention. Finally, the foundation bringing purple butterflies to NICUs across the UK to help identify surviving children of multiple births.
Fishermen from the Philippines, Ghana and Sri Lanka speak out about how badly, they say, they were treated by a Scottish fishing company that hired them. Most of the fishermen have been waiting in the UK for more than 10 years for their case to be heard. Despite two extensive police investigations, no convictions have been secured for human trafficking or modern slavery. This is the first time the fishermen have spoken out.
In Ukraine drone technology is transforming the battlefield and the rules of war are being rewritten. The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville travels to the frontlines in the northeast of the country, and meets some of the Ukrainian prisoners who could help solve a critical shortage of manpower in the country’s war with Russia.
Artist Ad Minoliti lives and works in the Argentinian capital Buenos Aires. They are known for their vibrant, geometric designs and the colours in their artworks often leap from the canvas onto the walls and floors of the gallery space. Nature and the environment are an important part of their work and Ad surrounds themselves with wildlife, from growing plants to encourage butterflies and bees at their home, to helping to cultivate green spaces in Buenos Aires. Ad is creating an installation for Un Été au Havre, A Summer in Le Havre festival in northern France and wants their artwork to be enjoyed not only by people, but be beneficial for nature as well. The BBC's Andrea Kidd joins them in their studio as they design their piece called Hôtel des Oiseaux, a bird hotel that will be a welcoming space for the birds.
In August of 2023, the tourist epicentre of the Hawaiian island of Maui caught fire and the blaze engulfed 2,000 houses, 800 businesses and took the lives of at least 115 people. But the history of the town of Lahaina means it did not go from being the lush and prosperous capital of Hawaii it once was, to disappearing through flames overnight. Born and raised on the island of Maui, Pūlama Kaufman returns there and, with cultural leader Hokulani Holt. They ask questions about the hidden stories of mistreatment, illegal ownership and cultural stripping that may have contributed to seeing Lahaina hidden under ash.
India's ancient caste system can result in controversy and discrimination in the country. But a new trend has sprung up of young women flaunting their caste on social media. Our Delhi correspondent Divya Arya has met some of these women, to try and find out why they are so keen to express 'caste pride'. Plus BBC Mundo's Laura García meets the residents of a Parisian retirement home who have found their own way of embracing the Olympic spirit.
Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
International condemnation followed the elections in Venezuela at the end of July that saw President Maduro declared the winner for a third consecutive term. Those who oppose him have been protesting. There has been violence, many injuries and hundreds arrested and detained. We bring together Venezuelans inside the country and those aboard. You can hear the pride and hope that people have for their country, but also their underlying fears. We hear from a family that is spread across the world. The mother explains why she is the only one remaining in the country. Although she misses her family, her love for her country and its people make her reluctant to leave. However, she reveals how she has a ladder from a window in her home in case she needs to make a quick escape.
Despite some opposition from within their own faith communities, Muti’ah and Angelica are on a mission to teach other Muslim women how to have healthy and safe sex lives.Geeta Pendse meets them both and finds out how to deliver sex education that is both useful and appropriate for their students.Presenter: Geeta Pendse
Producer: Linda Walker
Series producer: Rajeev Gupta
Production co-ordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
In 2015, the United Nations and the World Health Organisation set out their blueprints to eradicate Tuberculosis by 2030. TB is a potentially deadly bacterial disease that, despite being preventable and curable, kills just over a million people around the world every year. The disease is prevalent in India,
where one person dies every 90 seconds from TB. In 2017, the Indian government announced their plans to eradicate TB by 2025. But with that date looming, can the country with the highest global burden of TB succeed in its massive challenge? We hear from policymakers about the public health strategies they have formulated and the medical professionals on the ground who are employing them across the country.
Air Pollution is responsible for around seven million deaths every year. Governments around the world have been trying to tackle it with a variety of measures. But now, the fight against air pollution is increasingly catching the imagination of artists and designers. In Al Hudayriyat Island in Abu Dhabi, a 7m high installation, Smog Free Tower by Dutch Studio Roosegaarde, bills itself as "the world's first smog vacuum cleaner." It purifies 30,000 cubic metres of air per hour and the dirt filtered from this urban smog is compressed into jewellery - Smog Free Ring - sold to finance the project. In Delhi and Bangalore, AIR INK is "turning air pollution into ink solution" by capturing the black particles that float in the atmosphere and turning them into ink. Founder Anirudh Sharma and His co-founder, Nikhil Kaushik, say taking air pollution and turning it into as means the more AIR INK on your page, the less pollution in your lungs.
The so-called ‘parents’ revolution’ is happening in America - and it’s a revolt against the public education system. School choice campaigns are gaining ground across the country, fighting for tax-funded vouchers giving parents the opportunity to select their preferred school. More and more families are ditching institutions altogether, with homeschooling reportedly the fastest growing form of education in the US. Why are families turning away from traditional schooling, and what does this mean for the future of America’s education system? Alex Last travels to Arizona - a state at the forefront of the school choice movement - to find out more.
The Norwegian artist Edvard Munch is best known for his expressionist painting The Scream. A pastel version of it fetched $ 120 million when it was last auctioned in 2012, making it the most expensive piece of art ever sold at an auction. The art exhibition Edvard Munch: Trembling, shifts the focus to his landscape paintings, revealing a very different side of the artist and showing the vivid colours he used. Presenting this exhibition on both sides of the Atlantic - in the US, then in Germany and Norway - makes the show open up to a wider audience. But what does it take for an exhibition to go on a journey? The Museum Barberini in Potsdam, Germany grants the BBC exclusive access to witness what happens behind closed doors, when art works worth millions move across countries.
The US is home to around seven million undocumented migrants from central and south America. Many have been in the US for years, providing a vital workforce for many sectors of the US economy. But they have no health cover, or workplace benefits and many live under the constant threat of deportation back home. As Americans prepare for another presidential race where immigration is likely to figure high again on the agenda, Mike Lanchin travels to the state of Maryland, to hear about the lives of some of its large undocumented Latino population. He speaks to Maria who gets up at 5am for work, but has no holiday or sick pay. He meets Delmi, who has been using false papers to get work, and Toño who came to the US as an unaccompanied minor but now has a temporary work permit.
According to the UN, from 2008-2018 over 18,000 Vietnamese citizens a year married foreigners. The vast majority of them are women, and many find their foreign husbands through special matchmaking agencies. Thoung Lee from BBC Vietnamese has been looking into this profitable and controversial business.Produced by Caroline Ferguson, Hannah Dean and Alice Gioia.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
After weeks of student-led demonstrations and violence across Bangladesh, which caused the deaths of hundreds of people, Prime Minister Sheikh Hasina has fled to India and resigned after 15 years of controversial rule. Many of those left behind are celebrating what they are describing as a second independence. The man brought in to temporarily lead the country – the Nobel Peace Prize laureate Muhammad Yunus – has called on young people to help rebuild the South Asian country. Generation Z, who are mostly in their teens and 20s, have played a large role in forcing political change. Hosts Luke Jones and James Reynolds bring some of those young voices together to hear their thoughts and hopes for the future.
New digital technologies including AI have started to find a place in the grieving process, sometimes alongside more traditional religious rituals. 'Grief tech' concepts are springing up across the world, aiming to mask the finality of death for those left behind. Nkem Ifejika, who lost his mother three years ago, samples some grief tech products. He meets Stephen Smith, creator of StoryFile, a system which enables him to interact with his late mother almost as if he was interviewing her on video in the here and now. He talks to Japanese media artist Etsuko Ichihara, who has developed a robot that mirrors the physical personality, speech and gestures of a person who has died. And Nkem hears from Justin Harrison, who has been working on recreating the essence of his late mother’s personality.
A bonus episode from The Global Jigsaw looks at how the Taliban's return to power in Afghanistan has led to the erasure of women from public life. There’s a UN-led campaign to recognise it as “gender apartheid”, but the international community is divided and lacking leverage. Three years after the group took the capital Kabul, our experts explain what life is like for half of the population and why women have become a proxy for the nation’s image of itself. Producer: Kriszta Satori, Elchin Suleymanov
Presenter: Krassi TwiggThe Global Jigsaw looks at the world through the lens of its media. Think of us as your media detectives, helping you get past the propaganda and misinformation. The Global Jigsaw comes from BBC Monitoring, which tracks, deciphers, and analyses news media in 100 languages. At BBC Monitoring, we don’t just speak the language, we understand the narrative. So we can help you untangle the context and single out rhetoric from reality, deception from truth. For more episodes just search The Global Jigsaw wherever you got this podcast.
This is a bonus episode for The Documentary of The Engineers: Intelligent Machines. This year, we speak to a panel of three engineers at the forefront of the 'Machine Learning: AI' revolution with an enthusiastic live audience.Intelligent machines are remaking our world. The speed of their improvement is accelerating fast and every day there are more things they can do better than us. There are risks, but the opportunities for human society are enormous. ‘Machine Learning: AI’ is the technological revolution of our era. Three engineers at the forefront of that revolution come to London to join Caroline Steel and a public audience at the Great Hall of Imperial College:Regina Barzilay from MIT created a major breakthrough in detecting early stage breast cancer. She also led the team that used machine learning to discover Halicin, the first new antibiotic in 30 years. David Silver is Principal Scientist at Google DeepMind. He led the AlphaGo team that built the AI to defeat the world’s best human player of Go. Paolo Pirjanian founded Embodied, and is a pioneer in developing emotionally intelligent robots to aid child development. Producer: Charlie Taylor (Image: 3D hologram AI brain displayed by digital circuit and semiconductor. Credit: Yuichiro Chino/Getty Images)
A killer fungus is ravaging plantations of the Cavendish banana worldwide. It travels through the soil at lightning speed and chokes the banana plant so its leaves shrivel up and die. The disease is known as Tropical Race 4, or TR4 for short, and it has spread across the globe from Australia, to the Philippines, Pakistan and Mozambique. Now TR4 is widespread across Latin America. In Colombia where 30,000 people are employed in banana plantations, the government declared a state of national emergency when the fungus first arrived on farms in 2019. An international community of scientists is experimenting with different techniques to try to halt the spread of TR4 whether that's through gene-editing, selective breeding or injecting microbes into the soil.
The Italian town of Monfalcone on the Adriatic coast has an ethnic make-up unique to the country. Of a population of just over thirty thousand, more than six thousand are from Bangladesh. They’ve come to help construct huge cruise ships, providing labour to do the type of manual jobs which Italians no longer want to do.For years, they worshipped at two Islamic centres in the town. Then, in November, the town’s far right mayor, Anna Maria Cisint, tried to effectively ban collective prayer there, along with stopping cricket - the Bangladeshi national sport - from being played within the town.She says she is defending Christian values. Her critics say she is building walls rather than bridges. For Assignment, Sofia Bettiza travels to Italy to discover how the country is dealing with the increasing numbers of legal migrants coming to work in a country which needs their labour.
Known to many as breakdancing, breaking sprung up in the economic and social unrest of 1970s New York, as a form of expressive protest. Today, it is also a globalised and dizzyingly virtuosic competitive dance sport - and now it is making its debut at the Paris Olympics. We follow Australian competitor Rachael Gunn (B-girl Raygun) as she hits pause on her day-job as a university lecturer and prepares for her debut on the Olympics stage. In conversations across the final 100 days, as she practises at home in Sydney, tests out new moves in the UK, and gets settled in Paris, we hear about the challenges of training, experimenting, and honing her performance.
Hong Kong's history is being revised and erased - it's early origins, colonial legacy, post 1997 handover period and the crucial years since the mass 2019 democracy protests are being uprooted, overturned and rewritten by a government guided by the ruling Communist Party in Beijing. This 'rewriting' of history is being enforced in schools, universities, libraries, the local media and online. This process has seen library shelves raided, museums closed for 'review', art galleries censored, media archives wiped, commemorations and memorials banned. Every department of government seems affected - library users asked to scour the shelves for 'banned' books, the arts sector to purge itself of 'anti-China elements', the annual commemorations of the 1989 Tiananmen Square Massacre shut down. Democracy activists, authors of children's books, students, and newspaper owners have been jailed for holding contradictory views, telling alternative narratives. All in the few years since 2019 and Covid-19. Hong Kong is a changed place - a place where memory wars are being fought, where history and your interpretation of it can lead to long prison sentences or exile.
Three years ago the Taliban took control of Afghanistan. BBC Afghan journalists Shekiba Habib and Shoaib Sharifi were living and following the events as they unfolded and continue to do so.Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich.)
It began as a peaceful student protest against the way some government jobs are reserved for war veterans and their families. The violence that followed is some of the worst the country has witnessed in recent years. More than 200 people are reported dead, with most blamed on police gunfire. Host James Reynolds speaks with those in Bangladesh and hears stories of what they have witnessed; their fears for their safety and that of friends and family. They describe being afraid to leave their homes and being unable to sleep and eat.
The would-be Olympic champion who is now fighting to overcome his past traumas in Jordan.
Following the death of the acclaimed Irish author Edna O’Brien, who died aged 93 in July 2024, a bonus edition of World Book Club which was first published in 2008. Edna O’Brien was born in rural County Clare in 1930, and found her education by nuns suffocating. She moved to Dublin, and subsequently spent much of her life in London. The Country Girls tells the story of two girls from rural Ireland growing up in a convent school before moving to Dublin to begin their adult lives.
In a bonus episode of The Global Story podcast - Divorce: The art of breaking up. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC World Service. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.Divorce rates have been in decline across the West for decades. Experts put this down to a variety of factors, from fewer marriages to a widening dating pool, but cultural differences mean it is difficult to draw broad conclusions on the trends around splitting up. So how can we judge how attitudes to divorce have changed? On today's episode Lucy Hockings is joined by divorce mediator and former BBC presenter Joanna Gosling, as well as Marina Adshade, a professor at the University of British Columbia who focusses on the economics of sex and relationships. They interrogate some of the stats on divorce, and discuss how the process of dissolving marriage is portrayed in popular culture. The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists worldwide. We want your ideas, stories and experiences to help us understand and tell #TheGlobalStory. Email us at theglobalstory@bbc.com You can also message us or leave a voice note via WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480. Producer: Alice Aylett Roberts, Laurie Kalus and Emilia Jansson
Sound engineer: Hannah Montgomery and Phil Bull
Assistant editor: Sergi Forcada Freixas
Editor is Richard Fenton-Smith
In a special edition of HARDtalk Stephen Sackur looks back at some of the guests who have risked their personal freedom to disclose secret information. What motivates these whistleblowers?This is a bonus episode from HARDtalk, a show that brings you in-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities. For more episodes search for HARDtalk wherever your get your BBC podcasts.
Dr Willard Wigan MBE creates the smallest handmade sculptures in the world. He uses high powered microscopes and custom-made tools formed from shards of diamond, hypodermic needles, and paintbrushes made from eyelashes. Willard’s talent and determination propelled him to international acclaim. His work sells for six-figure sums, and he has exhibited internationally. However, his path to success has been far from easy. As a schoolboy, he struggled with reading and writing due to unrecognised autism, his teachers dismissed him, and he endured routine bullying and racism. Willard's latest sculpture, a tribute to Charles Darwin, is crafted on the end of a pencil – a canvas rich in symbolism.
We visit the Las Patronas women 30 years on from when the young Romero Vazquez sisters first threw a loaf of bread onto the infamously dangerous La Bestia train. A train meant only for cargo, but which has become a dangerous mode of transport for more than 400,000 migrants every year. It begins from near the border of Guatemala, and along its 2000 mile journey migrants from Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Mexico itself cling to its roof, heading north to America. Norma Romero guides us through the last 30 years since her and her sister first made the decision to help the passing migrants.
In countries like Somalia and Iran, where women are largely expected to present themselves with modesty, what role can make-up play? Bella Hassan of BBC Focus on Africa is from Somalia and Mina Joshaghani of BBC Persian is from Iran. They tell us about how make-up functions in a conservative society.
(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
Could a woman of colour be the next president of the United States? That is what much of America has been asking this week and it is at the heart of our conversations. Race remains a major political and social issue in the US and there is plenty of discussion about Ms Harris’s background as a black and Asian-American woman. We bring together three black women Democratic party supporters: Kay in New York, Ashley in Oklahoma City and Keosha in Washington DC. With President Biden standing down, we get their reaction to the new choice for Democratic candidate in November’s elections.
On a busy street in Los Angeles a group of people in yellow vests are holding a ladder against a lamppost. Up the ladder, 34-year-old Evan Clark is ripping down a sign that is nailed to the post. It reads “Jesus: The way, the truth, the life”. These are members of the Atheist Street Pirates, local activists who track and remove religious signs affixed to public property. This group say that there are laws that forbid the erection of religious messages on public property. Nastaran Tavakoli-Far travels to Los Angeles and joins the Atheist Street Pirates out on a hunt for religious signs.
In the industrial town of Haryana in Northern India, young girls are breaking barriers training hard to become the next generation of gold medal-winning wrestlers, following their idols who have tasted Olympic glory abroad and made a stand against attitudes to women at home. But their success has come at a price. BBC journalist Divya Arya looks at what it takes for these girls to become an Indian wrestling heroine.
In 1993 the legislators in Cobb County Atlanta passed a resolution stating that “lifestyles advocated by the gay community are incompatible with the standards to which this community describes“. The northern suburb was due to welcome the Olympics in 1996 as host of the volleyball competition. This is the inspiring story of a small campaign group who forced a change. After months of high-profile protests the organising committee stripped Cobb County as a host venue and diverted the torch relay away from its streets.
The Apartheid Killer. All the victims were black and the youngest was just 12 years old. Relatives are still searching for graves, years later. At least 39 people were killed in the city of East London, South Africa – by one person. After years of investigation, we’ve tracked him down. To hear more, search for World of Secrets, wherever you get your BBC podcasts. You can also listen here https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/w13xtvs0/episodes/downloads
World of Secrets is the home of major BBC global investigations and gripping storytelling, holding the powerful to account. Follow or subscribe to catch up on previous seasons and to hear what’s coming up in 2024.
Massimo Bottura’s Osteria Francescana has twice been named the world’s best restaurant. Situated in Bottura’s hometown of Modena, a place renowned for racing cars and balsamic vinegar, the triple Michelin-starred establishment blends traditional Italian cooking with a truly avant-garde sense of design and creativity. Bottura is the leader of the culinary movement that sees food as edible art. Food journalist and cookbook author Emiko Davies spends a weekend in Modena with Bottura and his restauranteur wife Lara Gilmore.
The destruction of the Roma by the Nazi state and allies and their subsequent post war fate is little understood and still being written. Historian Celia Donert tells the story of this forgotten holocaust and explores its contested memory and legacy.
What is it like to cover such a globally significant sporting event such as the Olympic Games? We've invited three of our Fifth Floor colleagues to discuss what the Olympics means to their audiences and to tell us about some of the lesser known stories behind this year's games.
Joining us are Celestine Korey from BBC Sports Africa, based in Nairobi and Pooria Jefereh from BBC Persian, who are both heading to Paris for the games. We'll also hear from BBC Uzbek’s Firuz Rahimi who has spent the past few years following the incredible story of two sisters from Afghanistan who'll represent their country in the cycling despite the road to geting there being anything but smooth. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
The former President, with his face bloodied, surrounded by Secret Service agents, the American flag behind him, his fist in the air defiant – how much will that image change the United States? This is the focus of our conversations in this week’s edition of the programme. We bring together witnesses to the shooting in Pennsylvania and hear from people at this week’s Republican National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. There, supporters with tears in their eyes and bandages on their ears, show their love for Donald Trump.
In Tbilisi, Georgia, a radical experiment in interfaith relations is taking place. The Peace Project is one of the world’s first to bring a mosque, synagogue, church, and other places of worship together under one roof. Sounds of Muslim prayer, Shabbat services, and Georgian hymns fill the air as worshippers from different faiths mingle and break bread in the communal Hall of Abraham. The project is the brainchild of Malkhaz Songulashvili, a maverick Bishop of Georgia’s Evangelical-Baptist Church, and is attracting attention from religious leaders around the world.
Former Brazilian model, wellness influencer and spiritual life coach Kat Torres was an inspiration and a lifeline to women all over the world. More than a million people on Instagram followed her extraordinary career trajectory from extreme poverty in Brazil, to a European modelling career and a life of luxury in the US.
But behind the perfectly curated posts is a story of witchcraft, sexual exploitation and human trafficking; a dark and secretive sorority that led to missing women and sent their families and the FBI on a desperate search to find them.
After months of investigations, a team from BBC Eye and BBC News Brasil uncover a wellness empire built on half-truths and lies. For the documentary Hannah Price tells the story of her enslaved followers and the heavy price they paid. And for the first time - in a surreal confrontation behind the walls of a Brazilian prison - we hear from the self-proclaimed “guru” who exerted absolute control.
In this second part of his journey from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, across the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Israel, reporter Tim Whewell continues his exploration of the physical and human reality behind the slogan “From the River to the Sea”, a phrase which creates intense controversy. In this podcast he descends from the high ridge of the West Bank hills to the Israeli Mediterranean coast at Herzlia, known for its beaches and high-tech industry – and then continues along the sea, to end his journey at the ruined ancient city of Caesarea. Along the way, on the West Bank, he encounters a Palestinian dry stone waller and an Israeli hairdresser – and then, crossing into Israel, he talks to Jewish Israelis including teachers, activists and a journalist – and to Palestinian citizens of Israel. Finally, he meets a group of young Israelis who have recently finished their military service. Some of them have been fighting in Gaza. What future do all these people hope for, in the 90 kilometres between the River and the Sea? Presenter/producer: Tim Whewell Sound mixing: Neil Churchill Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy (Photo shows some of the people Tim meets in the two parts of the series. Clockwise from top left: Ben Levy, Israeli nature ranger; Sulieman Mleahat, Palestinian development worker; Susie Becher, Israeli political activist; Okayla Shehadi, retired Palestinian citizen of Israel.)
Since the start of the war between Israel and Hamas last year, the cry “From the River to the Sea” has been heard more and more as a pro-Palestinian slogan. But what river? What sea? And what exactly does the phrase mean? It’s the subject of intense controversy. In this two-part series, reporter Tim Whewell travels from the River Jordan to the Mediterranean Sea, across a tiny stretch of land – just over an hour by car if you don’t stop - that’s perhaps the most argued-over in the world. Along the way, he meets shepherds and teachers, soldiers and gardeners, artists and activists - Palestinians and Israelis of many different views and backgrounds. The shortest line from the River to the Sea doesn’t pass through Gaza. But everyone Tim meets on his journey across the Israeli-occupied West Bank of the River, and in Israel, is living in the terrible shadow of the October 7th Hamas attack on Israel and the war that’s followed. The future of the often-beautiful, fast-changing, overcrowded region he crosses will be at the heart of any eventual solution to the Middle East conflict. In this first programme, he goes from the Jordan, through the Israeli settlement of Argaman, the Palestinian herding community of al-Farisiyah and the Palestinian village of Duma, ending up at the Israeli settlement of Shilo. What do people in those places think now – and do they have any hope for the future? (In Part 2, Tim leaves the West Bank and travels through Israel.) Presenter/producer: Tim Whewell Sound mixing: Andy Fell and Neil Churchill Production co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman Editor: Penny Murphy (Photo shows some of the people Tim meets in the two parts of the series. Clockwise from top left: Ben Levy, Israeli nature ranger; Sulieman Mleahat, Palestinian development worker; Susie Becher, Israeli political activist; Okayla Shehadi, retired Palestinian citizen of Israel.)
Project Rescue Children claims to save children from trafficking and abuse across the world, but the BBC has uncovered evidence of false and misleading social media posts. The charity's director, Adam Whittington, has raised thousands of pounds from sponsors and donors. But the BBC’s Hayley Mortimer has found that unsuspecting children are being used as props, and the rescue centres have no children. Project Rescue Children rejects the BBC's findings and says its work has benefitted hundreds of children worldwide.
Inspired by a story told to her by an Indigenous elder, Taipei-based artist Anchi Lin, also known by her Atayal name Ciwas Tahos, is working on a new multi-media installation. Anchi has dedicated her research and creative work to exploring the Indigenous space of Temahahoi, a place where queer, gender non-conforming people lived and could communicate with bees, who were also their protection from approaching intruders. Combining new technology, handmade ceramics and traditional bee chasing skills, Anchi Lin celebrates her Indigenous culture and identity in her work.
Hundreds of thousands of men are currently fighting for Ukraine, and the army needs yet more soldiers. We speak to three BBC Ukrainian colleagues about the way this is changing the country, and how it's viewed by Ukrainians. Daria Taradai and Ilona Hromliuk join us from Kyiv, and Anastasiya Zanuda joins us from Warsaw. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
People in both the UK and France have voted for change in snap elections, sending a signal that they are unhappy with many aspects of their lives. To get a sense of why people voted the way they did, host James Reynolds takes a mini tour of towns and cities across the UK. In Bradford, a city in the north of England, he meets Anna who wanted equal opportunities and voters in the town of Worthing on England’s south coast, which has just elected its first ever Labour MP. Pam and Mike tell us about the challenges they have experienced since Brexit, when Britain left the European Union. We also visit a café and shop in the port town of Dover, and we end our journey, across the English Channel in France.
The BBC's Rahila Bano, explains why her family decided to break with the Muslim tradition of a congregational prayer reading for her mother after she passed away. Instead she decided to concentrate on one of the five pillars of Islam - to give alms or charity and on her mother's wishes to focus on those who are poor and in need. Rahila spoke to her sister about it for the first time since her mum’s death. She also spoke to a friend who lost her mother about why she decided to organise a prayer gathering in her mother's memory and to an Islamic scholar who says “khatams” are not really part of Islam
Football rarely stops in Turkey, but when two earthquakes causes tens of thousands to die in the south-east region of the country early in 2023, even the passionately followed Super Lig top division is suspended. Hatayspor - a team from the league - loses its star player Christian Atsu to the rubble of a collapsed building. Its home city of Antakya is all but wiped from the map. A year later, football writer James Montague travels to his home nation of Turkey to tell the story of the indomitable club's improbable, and symbolic fight to survive in the aftermath of the disaster.
It is one of the most bizarre crimes of our times. Con men posing as police officers are forcing Chinese students to fake their own kidnapping. Elaine Chong reports on the extremes to which criminals will go to make money from their victims. The scammers trick Chinese people studying abroad into believing that they are wanted for crimes back in their homeland, and that they must hand over large sums of money to avoid repercussions for them or their family. When the students can no longer meet the escalating demands they are told to fake their own kidnapping so the fake police can seek a ransom from their relatives back in China.
In a new exhibition Wendy breaks conventions, painting on walls and installing herself in the gallery, becoming part of the art. Wendy Sharpe is an multi-award winning Australian artist working on a new exhibition Spellbound for the Art Gallery of New South Wales in Sydney. In this exhibition she breaks all the rules, by painting directly onto walls, hanging works upside down or touching and installing not only her studio in this museum, but also herself, as she paints a mural directly on the wall in front of the public. Regina Botros joins her as she works towards this immersive, labyrinth-like exhibition, where the lines between art and artist are blurred.
In a coastal region of eastern Kenya at least one elderly person is being killed every week – in the name of witchcraft. There are violent attacks on people accused of being witches across much of Africa. But, according to human rights groups, the seventy or so murders every year in Kilifi County are about more than fear of the supernatural. For Assignment, Njeri Nwangi from BBC Africa Eye investigates the real motives behind these brutal attacks and the impunity that enables them. She meets victims, relatives and perpetrators. Listeners might find some of the details in this programme upsetting. Archive: ‘Witches’ Burnt in Kenya, NTD News
The BBC’s Yogita Limaye speaks to Kavita Puri, the creator and presenter of Three Million, to explore how the series was made, and how she went about tracking down eye-witnesses to the Bengal Famine of 1943. They are joined by author and historian Srimanjari and ‘memory collector’ Sailen Sarkar, who recorded testimonies of the very last survivors of the famine. Together they explore the legacy of the Bengal famine, and why its memory is still so fraught today. A special episode recorded with an audience at the India International Centre in New Delhi.
A virtual tour of Brazil's giant ravines, the radio shows helping Maasai people to protect their land and a real life Squid Game in South Korea: how BBC journalists around the world are finding new and engaging ways to cover climate change stories. Featuring Carol Olona and Shin Suzuki, Caroline Mwende and Suhnwook Lee. Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
Like many countries, Kenya is struggling with a cost of living crisis and how to balance the books. The government’s answer was a plan to raise taxes, in what was called the Finance Bill, and this created a spark for protests across the country. According to estimates by the state-funded rights commission, 39 people have been killed in those demonstrations. Parliament was set on fire and hundreds were arrested. Many of those protesters are in their 20s, from what is known as Generation Z. Ultimately, President Ruto said he would not go ahead with tax increases, and he would listen to the country’s youth - but the protests continue. Host James Reynolds brings together several Gen Z protesters to discuss what is making them so angry.
In a bonus episode of The Global Story podcast - A historic loss for the conservatives ushers in a new era in British politics.The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Sepharad is the Hebrew word for Spain and Jews who trace their ancestry there are called Sephardic Jews. Five hundred years ago they were expelled from Spain. Their exile created new communities stretching from Brazil to Amsterdam to Istanbul and today, Israel. It is a culture filled with food and songs of longing for a homeland. Michael Goldfarb goes on a journey from the past to the present in search of Sepharad.
In many countries around the world, trying to take your own life is still a criminal offence. People who have attempted suicide are often put in prison and deep-rooted religious beliefs and cultural attitudes are often behind the criminalisation laws. Journalist Ashley Byrne looks into Malawi where people face jail sentences of up to two years and Bangladesh and Kenya who have been arrested, beaten up and faced problems rebuilding their lives. Ashley (whose partner tried to take his own life twice) also speaks to mental health specialists in countries which have recently changed the law like Singapore and Pakistan. He hears how despite decriminalisation stigma around suicide prevails.
Chinese people around the world are being targeted by a scam in which conmen posing as police, trick them into believing they are wanted for a crime back in China. Victims are threatened with extradition to China unless they hand over “bail” money. In the first of a two-part investigation into Chinese police impersonation scams, Elaine Chong speaks to Helen, a British Chinese woman who handed over her life savings. The gang convinced Helen they were genuine police by faking documents and creating the impression they were calling her from a police station.
Els and Jan have fewer than three days left on Earth. Childhood sweethearts who met in kindergarten more than six decades ago, they know precisely when they will die. And how. On an early summer’s Monday morning they will travel to a nearby hospice. Some of their family and friends will accompany them. And then precisely at 10.30am - holding hands, they hope - two doctors will administer lethal medication to each of them.In the Netherlands, euthanasia and assisted suicide are legal if someone is suffering unbearably with no prospect of getting better. The suffering can be physical or psychological. Els was diagnosed with dementia. Jan lived with pain 24/7.Last year, 33 Dutch couples chose to die like Els and Jan. And in February, one of the Netherlands’ former Prime Ministers ended his life by euthanasia together with his wife. For Assignment, Linda Pressly meets Els and Jan as they prepare for the end. And she explores the complex issue of allowing euthanasia in cases of dementia. A warning: some listeners might find the content of this documentary upsetting.
Script writer Baek Mi-kyoung has pioneered female narratives on Korean television, putting women front and centre of acclaimed dramas like Mine and The Lady in Dignity. Seven years ago, her K-drama Strong Girl Bong-soon was a huge success. Audiences fell in love with this rom-com about a cute girl with supernatural strength. / Next, Baek wanted to create an all-action multigenerational female superhero series. But would the budget match her ambitions? Vibeke Venema meets her as the series, Strong Girl Nam-soon, is going to air - and the all-important TV ratings are coming in.
Nigeria is Africa’s economic powerhouse - so why are so many young people trying to leave and find opportunities in other countries? It’s become so common there’s even a word for it: Japa, Yoruba for escape.Last year, Nigeria’s immigration service issued a record number of passports - almost 2 million.So when we were in Lagos we spoke to the BBC’s Faith Oshoko, who explained what drives young professionals to move abroad.And we chatted to students - would they ever Japa? And would they come back?To find out more of what is going on in the world search for "What in the World" wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.
Instant loan apps promise easy money. But what's the catch? Investigative reporter Poonam Agarwal and filmmaker Ronny Sen take us behind the scenes of their award-winning documentary The Trap: Inside the blackmail scam destroying lives across India.This programme contains discussion of suicide and suicide attempts. If you feel affected by this topic, you could speak to a health professional or an organisation that offers support. Details of help available in many countries can be found at: www.befrienders.orgProduced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
The annual pilgrimage to Mecca, in Saudi Arabia, is something millions of people look forward to as an immensely spiritual experience. A main pillar of Islam, Muslims try to do it at least once in their lives, if they are physically and financially able. Saudi Arabia says 1.8 million people took part in Hajj this year. It coincided with a heatwave where temperatures reached more than 50C. Some 1,300 people died, many of those due to the intense heat. Three Muslims - from Kenya, the United States and Saudi Arabia – share their experiences of Hajj, including spiritual enlightenment, overcrowding, bereavement and sexual harassment.
Roma photographer Artúr Čonka joins the annual Romani pilgrimage to Saintes-Maries-de-la-Mer in the south of France. Thousands of Romani from across western Europe gather in the small town in Provence each year to honour their patron saint, Sara-la-Kâli, who represents motherly love, is a protector of the oppressed, and is even said to help couples conceive. It is Artúr's first time on the pilgrimage and is keen to uncover the legends behind this enigmatic saint and what she represents to the Romani community today. The streets are packed with musicians playing rumba, flamenco and manouche jazz. Artúr meets writer and scrap metal dealer Kerensa Smith, film-maker and journalist Jake Bowers and Dutch pilgrim Kali Van Esch who has been coming every year since she was a baby.
The brilliant cricketer Frank Worrell became the first permanent Black captain of the West Indies team in 1960 – but he had to wait for a decade to get the job, denied by the elitism, insularity and racism of Caribbean cricket's rulers. BBC producer and cricket author Simon Lister travels to Barbados to find out how Worrell's upbringing, his cricketing adventures and his determination not to be cowed by the powers that ran island cricket, shaped a man who changed the West Indian game for ever. Simon Lister also considers Frank Worrell's legacy for today, speaking to Ebony Rainford-Brent, England's women's first Black cricketer who discovered that she had a unique connection to Frank Worrell that changed her life.
The websites have names like DC Weekly and Chicago Crier. They are filled with thousands of legitimate-looking stories, plucked from real news websites and rewritten by artificial intelligence. But BBC Trending has found that these sites are part of a wide-ranging operation designed to insert false stories into political debates, over Ukraine and now gradually shifting to the US election campaign. One of the people involved is John Dougan, a former Florida police officer now living in Moscow. Online evidence links him to the network of sites, which reference American cities and are populated by fake journalists. Experts believe they are part of a wide effort to influence American public opinion in advance of November’s presidential election.
In late 2023 a group of German journalists released a podcast series, Legion: Most Wanted. It described their ultimately unsuccessful search for a terrorist suspect, Daniela Klette, using an AI facial recognition tool. She had been on the run for more than 30 years, together with two accomplices. The trio are believed by the police to have been members of the Red Army Faction, the RAF, an anti-imperialist terrorist group, often referred to as the Baader Meinhof gang. The RAF claimed responsibility in the late 1980s and early 1990s for the assassination of a number of prominent Germans. None of these crimes has ever been cleared up.
Hanna Harris is Helsinki’s chief design officer and the second person in the job since the role was created in 2016. But why does a city need a chief design officer? And, what can design do to boost wellbeing? Erika Benke joins Hanna as she searches for new pioneering opportunities that have the potential to change people’s lives. They visit a vast decommissioned power plant, inviting local people to share their views on how to give an industrial facility that has served its purpose, a new lease of life. They also go to an old playground that is about to be transformed into a new themed playground where children can learn about computing, algorithms and AI. As Hanna travels a cross the city, we hear her plotting, planning and exploring ideas and infecting others with her passion for design.
After a lull in activities, in 2024 the Islamic State Group claimed to be behind several major attacks, showing the world they have not gone away. Among them was the storming by gunmen of a Moscow concert hall. Ten years after the Islamist extremists declared the establishment of a caliphate, our Jihadist Media Monitoring Team considers the current capabilities and ambitions of the group that once ruled over a large territory in Iraq and Syria. Producer: Kriszta Satori
Presenter: Krassi Twigg
Writer Alvin Hall returns to the world he grew up in, to shed light on the political present and share a haunting portrait of a disappearing way of life. This is Wakulla County, Florida and it is an America most people do not know. It has long been deeply rural, a place of unspoilt wilderness and incredible natural beauty. But it has also been a place with a violent history of racial segregation and oppression. The security Alvin experienced as a child growing up in one of the county's self-sufficient Black “village” communities contrasts with horrific racial violence he has only gained knowledge of as an adult. But change is coming. Since Alvin’s last visit almost 10 years ago unprecedented development has swept the county and it seems as if decades of racial division might really be starting to wear away. Is this really the beginning of the end?
10 years ago, IS proclaimed the creation of an Islamic State or Caliphate in Iraq and Syria. They went on to dominate headlines for years, committing terrible attacks and atrocities in the Middle East and beyond. Despite losing territory in 2019, the group still exists and is active in many countries around the world. Jihadist media specialist Mina Al-Lami analyses IS' most recent activities and the threats posed by them and other militant groups.Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
The war in Ukraine has contributed to a heightened awareness of security in parts of Europe, and in some countries, the reintroduction of different forms of national service has become a debate once again. In the UK, the ruling Conservative party has promised a system of national service if re-elected. In Italy too, deputy prime minister Matteo Salvini has introduced a controversial bill to bring back mandatory military service. In Germany, the defence minister has presented a proposal for selective military service focused on volunteers to boost its depleted armed forces. Our conversations in this edition bring people together who have completed national service in some form.
This special programme is dedicated to the team of scientists and support staff isolated at British research stations in the Antarctic midwinter. For the staff living at three British Antarctic Survey research stations (Rothera, Bird Island and South Georgia), and at other national bases across the frozen continent, midwinter is a special time. With no sunlight, Antarctica is at its coldest and those stationed on the frozen continent face months of total isolation. Midwinter celebrations at the British research stations include a feast, exchange of presents, watching the 1982 horror film The Thing (where an alien monster terrorises an Antarctic base) and listening - on short wave - to the BBC’s Midwinter Broadcast. Presenter Cerys Matthews features messages from family and friends at home, as well as music requests from Antarctica.
Over 800 ethnically-Korean refugees fled Ukraine for Koryo Village in South Korea’s Gwangju province following Russia’s invasion. Many Koryoin are women and children who escaped Ukraine when male family members were drafted. Some have secured legal status and jobs, while others await document processing. They are descendants of Koreans who fled to the Soviet Union during the Japanese occupation of Korea. Journalist So Jeong Lee visits the village, observing new arrivals and a school where children learn Korean. But recent elections have led to new government policies which will impact the Koryoin.
Fighters from dissident armed groups in Colombia are using TikTok to glorify their lives as guerrillas and recruit youngsters. These armed groups did not like the terms of a peace treaty negotiated between the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government in 2016, and they kept fighting against the Colombian government. Videos glorifying life inside the guerrilla: money, cars, guns, women, community and purpose, have struck a chord with teens, particularly in rural areas like the Cauca region in west Colombia. So how popular are these TikToks and what does it mean for Colombia?
Is Russia Europe’s last empire? Is its invasion of Ukraine a “colonial war”? Is “decolonising” the country the only way of ensuring it stops being a threat to its neighbours and world peace?Since last year, “decolonising Russia” has become a buzz-phrase in Ukraine and other former members of the soviet union, among many Western strategists and politicians, Russian studies experts – and Russia’s own liberal opposition and ethnic minorities.And that’s triggered a vigorous debate about whether the term “decolonisation” is really relevant to Russia – and what it means. Is it about challenging the “imperial mindset” of its rulers – and perhaps of every ordinary Russian? Or perhaps it means dismembering the country itself?In “Assignment: Decolonising Russia” Tim Whewell dissects a new and vital controversy with the help of historians, policy makers and activists in the former Soviet Union, the West and the Global South.
For artist Nazanin Moradi, who was brought up in Iran where women are “second-class citizens in every sense,” reversing the “unfair” gender roles is paramount. In her new project, the multidisciplinary artist challenges male domination and toxic masculinity, within a fragmented historical context where fantasy meets rebellion. She does this by changing the narrative of ancient Mesopotamian mythology, fixating on the legendary battle where the supremely powerful dragon goddess of oceans Tiamat, was killed by the storm god Marduk. Sahar Zand spends time with Nazanin as she embarks on the ambitious project.
Eighty years ago at least three million Indians, who were British subjects, died in the Bengal Famine. But today different generations in Britain are coming to terms with this difficult past. Kavita Puri meets the granddaughter of a senior colonial figure, who is only just learning about her grandfather's role in the famine. Initially she feels shame, but discoveries in her family archive change her perspective. A 97 year-old British man makes a surprising revelation about his role in the Bengal famine. And three generations on, British Bengalis mark the famine in Britain, in an unexpected way.
Would you turn to AI to create your perfect partner? Wanqing Zhang from the BBC Global China Unit has been looking into an AI dating trend that is going viral in China. Plus, Daria Taradai from BBC Ukraine tells us what it's like to live and work with power cuts in Kyiv. Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
Politics in Europe took a shift to the right following the recent European parliamentary elections, with far-right parties making gains in several countries, most notably France. The size of victory for the opposition National Rally Party led President Macron to call a snap national election. We bring together two men who support Marine Le Pen’s far-right party to discuss what’s informing their views. A major concern, they say, is fear about crime and security, which causes some people to carry knives.
Attar is the essential oil that is produced when aromatics like jasmine and sandalwood are pressed and distilled. It has been a feature of life in India, as well as many other parts of the world, for over 5,000 years, and it has been the defining industry of the Indian city of Kannauj for over a thousand. But whereas once this ancient discipline employed nearly all the city’s residents, it’s now suffering severely from the impact of climate change and the rise of synthetic perfumes. Journalist Jigyasa Mishra meets the farmers, flower pickers and traditional perfumers of Kannauj to better understand the way of life attar sustains and to ask: can anything be done to reverse the trend?Producers: Jigyasa Mishra and Artemis IrvineA Whistledown Production for BBC World Service
George Antone is a member of the only Roman Catholic Church in Gaza, part of a dwindling Christian community whose roots in this area, go back to the 4th Century. When war broke out in October 2023, he is convinced that staying in Gaza City is the right option - for safety and to continue bearing witness to Jesus in this part of the world. His is the first family to move into the compound of the Holy Family Church and he helps lead the parish through the next months as they suffer deaths of loved ones, near starvation and destruction of their homes. Throughout it all, he keeps in contact with BBC Producer Catherine Murray sending her WhatsApp messages from a warzone.
Jusper Machogu is a farmer from south-western Kenya who describes himself as a “climate sceptic”. He wrongly claims that climate change is a “scam” or a “hoax” designed to hold Africa back. On social media, he has also become known as a staunch defender of fossil fuel exploration in Africa. His views have caught the eye of those in the West who, like him, deny the overwhelming scientific consensus on global warming. They have helped him grow his following and spread his message globally. But, in doing so, has Mr Machogu unwittingly become a tool for the fossil fuel industry? How dangerous is the message of social media influencers like him?
Greystones made global headlines a year ago when, concerned by rising anxiety levels among their pupils, the headteachers from all the primary schools in the town invited parents to sign a voluntary pact or code; not to buy their child a smartphone before they moved up to secondary school. In Ireland that’s usually at age 12. Beth McLeod talks to teachers, pupils and parents about their reaction to the initiative. Has there been any backlash? At one of the town’s secondary schools she meets an assistant headteacher who is passionately demanding a culture change around phone use for older students too, warning parents that although they think they are giving their children access to the internet, they are really giving the internet access to their children. She speaks to teenagers about their views on what is the right age to be on social media and asks the Irish Health Minister what the government is doing to hold tech companies to account.
Released in 2017, the video game Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice saw players take control of dark-age warrior Senua as she battled to rescue the soul of her dead lover from the Norse underworld. The action-adventure game from British studio Ninja Theory won awards for its gameplay, acting and storytelling, as well as plaudits for its nuanced and well-researched depiction of psychosis. German actor Melina Juergens was awarded a Bafta for her performance as the titular character. Now studio head Dominic Matthews and his team are working on the sequel, Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II. Nathan Jones joins Dominic, Melina and the rest of the team in Cambridge as they tell this next chapter of their story.
The Muslim pilgrimage to Mecca, the Hajj, attracted no fewer than two million pilgrims in 2023. But this pilgrim boom has an environmental downside: climate scientists are warning that the five-day Hajj alone, with its bargain flights, hotels, catering and local transport, produces over 1.8 million tonnes of greenhouse gases, roughly the amount New York City emits every two weeks. Yet the Saudi government has plans to go much bigger still: by 2030, they want 30 million pilgrims a year to take part in the Hajj and Umrah. Zubeida Malik asks what the Saudi authorities, local groups and campaigners, religious scholars and the pilgrims themselves can do to reduce the environmental footprint of one of the largest religious gatherings on the planet.
For the hundreds of people who live in a cluster of villages between India and Pakistan, a map drawn up long ago still causes daily struggles. Punjab - the land of the five rivers - was carved up to create Pakistan during The Partition of 1947 when India gained its independence from colonial rule. Two rivers went to Pakistan, two stayed with India and one, the Ravi, crosses both countries. For 72 years, communities who live by the Ravi on the Indian side have been asking for a permanent bridge, so they can access hospitals, schools, shops, banks. What they have got is a makeshift pontoon bridge, which has to be dismantled for the monsoon season. Journalist Chhavi Sachdev travels to the western part of India to meet the Indian people whose lives are shaped by the Ravi river.
The election of Mexico's President Claudia Sheinbaum is a moment of history. For the first time, a woman is in charge of the country. Host James Reynolds travels around the country hearing about the challenges facing the new president through the lives and concerns and hopes of the people he spoke to. Many live in fear of criminal cartels and armed gangs, and women feel unsafe on the streets. Ricardo, whose brother was abducted and sister was murdered, is afraid to go out with his daughters. In a migration camp in Tijuana, a couple with two young daughters describe how they left their hometown after receiving death threats from a cartel and Ana, who wants to be a doctor, hopes a woman in power will make a difference.
'Spiritual but not religious’ is the fastest growing faith category amongst Gen Z and Millennials around the world. However, in Nigeria, where most people identify as either Christian or Muslim, questioning doctrine or exploring alternative beliefs is still often seen as taboo. Kamsy and Ore were both raised in evangelical Christian households, but began questioning their faith in their early 20s. Separately, they began reading about other belief systems, such as Judaism, Buddhism and traditional African religions, and posting their thoughts and experiences on social media. Neither were prepared for the backlash they received. When the two of them finally connected, they bonded over how lonely their ‘deconstruction’ journeys had been. So they created a WhatsApp group for others like them. Today, The Table defines itself as a community for the irreligious yet spiritual, and aims to provide a space for connection and discussion free from the dogma.
Why is football such a universal language? Three BBC World Service journalists and football fans - Matias Zibell Garcia, Pooria Jafereh and Njoroge Muigai – explain what the game mean to their audiences in Argentina, Iran and Kenya, and look ahead at the summer season. Plus, Tamara Ebiwei from BBC Pidgin on why Nigerian players have to learn a new national anthem.Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson. (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
Female genital mutilation affects around 230 million women and girls globally, with rates highest in Africa. FGM is considered a human rights violation and has no health benefits. That’s according to World Health Organisation. Hibo Wardere, a survivor from Somalia, recounts her ordeal and discusses the importance of education in ending the practice.The Gambia banned FGM in 2015, but it could be about to reverse this. BBC journalist Esther Ogola, who’s based in Nairobi, explains why. We also hear how Kenya has more than halved its victims - and discuss the likelihood of the practice ending by 2030, which is the UN’s goal.To find out more of what is going on in the world search for "What in the World" wherever you get your BBC Podcasts.Note: This episode contains some graphic descriptions of FGM.
Can information become a weapon of war? Oleksandra Matviichuk, whose organisation was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize, is documenting alleged Russian war crimes against Ukraine. She talks to Babita Sharma about how she uncovers the evidence. Babita also speaks to Anastasiia Romaniuk, a young Ukrainian digital platforms analyst, who is exposing disinformation around the war, and to Lisa Kaplan, founder and CEO of a US company which helps organisations protect themselves from social media manipulation.This content was created as a co-production between Nobel Prize Outreach and the BBC.
Image: Courtesy of Oleksandra Matviichuk
Nobel Prize laureate Sir Paul Nurse wants science, not politics, to guide the debate surrounding climate change. But how do you convince the denialists? Babita Sharma takes us through the evolving strategies of those who claim climate change isn’t real, and speaks to two young people who are trying to make a difference. UK climate activist Phoebe L Hanson founded Teach the Teacher, which gives school children the resources to engage with their teachers on climate change. Ugandan Nyombi Morris set up a non-profit organisation, Earth Volunteers, to mobilise young people like him who wanted to promote the fight against the climate crisis.This content was created as a co-production between Nobel Prize Outreach and the BBC.
Image credit: Francis Crick Institute
Attacked on social media - how Nobel Prize laureate Maria Ressa came under fire for doing her job as a journalist in the Philippines, covering the presidency of Rodrigo Duterte. She talks to Babita Sharma about the fight to stop social media being used to spread lies and hate against powerful women. Babita also speaks to two female digital pioneers. Lucina Di Meco is the co-founder of the California-based group She Persisted, which addresses the digital threat faced by women in politics. Audrey Pe is founder of the non-profit organisation WiTech, which aims to inspire young people to use technology to bring positive change.This content was created as a co-production between Nobel Prize Outreach and the BBC.
Image of Maria Ressa: Getty Images
How Nobel Prize laureate Katalin Kariko got caught up in the Covid vaccine disinformation wars. What was it like - as someone behind one of the vaccines – to be in the eye of the false information storm? Katalin tells her story to Babita Sharma. And US educator and artist Young Elder tells Babita how she helped to build trust in the vaccine among Baltimore’s black community. She works with Hip Hop Health, an organisation combating health and vaccine disinformation, started by rapper Doug E Fresh.This content was created as a co-production between Nobel Prize Outreach and the BBC.
Image: Courtesy of Katalin Kariko
Farmers' protests have been erupting across Europe, and on February 20th one image from a protest in Poland went viral. It showed a tractor carrying a soviet flag and bearing a slogan calling on Russian President Vladimir Putin to ‘bring order to Ukraine, Brussels and our rulers’. The man driving the tractor was arrested and is currently awaiting trial. After the image was released Poland’s foreign ministry spokesperson released a statement warning of attempts to take over the country’s agricultural protest movement by extreme and irresponsible groups ‘possibly under the influence of Russian agents.’ We attempt to track down the man behind the banner. Who is he? And what is the evidence for Russian involvement in, or amplification of, farmers’ protests in Poland and beyond?
El Salvador used to be known as one of the most dangerous places in the world. The central American country was dominated by rival gangs who terrorised the population. President Bukele declared a State of Emergency in 2022 and since then more than 76,000 people have been arrested – around 1% of the population. Two years on Jane Chambers travels to El Salvador to find out how people’s lives have changed – for better and for worse - since the crack down on crime.
Andy Riley is an Emmy-winning scriptwriter and a million-selling author and cartoonist published in more than 20 countries, notably with the Bunny Suicides book series. Antonia Quirke follows him as he begins to write and draw the third book in his graphic novel series for children. The series is called Action Dude. That's the name of the main character, too; he lives for danger, he lives for excitement, he lives with his Mum because he's eight years old. Antonia also follows Andy as he performs a semi-improvised, hour-long stand up show with live drawing.
How many soldiers are fighting - and dying - for Russia in Ukraine? Who are they, and what do their stories tell us about Russia's frontline tactics? We'll ask Olga Ivshina, who has been monitoring Russian losses in Ukraine from day one. Plus, Anne McAlpine from BBC Alba dives into the history of Gaelic proverbs. Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
Anyone seeking election as a politician can expect to have to argue their case with the electorate, and deal with opposition and criticism. But what happens when that democratic debate turns toxic and politicians face personal abuse, intimidation and threats of violence? With election campaigns being fought in several countries around the world, we bring together politicians in Canada, France and the UK to discuss some of their experiences of public office. Heather Williams, a councillor in the east of England tells presenter Luke Jones how she was threatened with being shot and Catherine McKenna who served in the Canadian government, and her son Matt share the challenges they faced living life under the political spotlight.
It was the biggest gold mine fraud of all time – a scam that devastated countless lives. But what really happened?
Anna Holligan spends time with Dutch Muslim Nora Akachar, whose world was turned upside down with the traditional progressive country voted for right-wing politician Geert Wilders. Nora is left questioning her identity and what it means for her to be Muslim in the Netherlands today.
Ghanaian gamer and broadcaster Kobby Spiky explores the video game landscape across Africa. He speaks to everyday gamers and developers about their experiences of playing and creating them. Although Asia and North America are usually seen as the hubs of the video game industry because they are the homes of the three major console manufacturers and some of the largest publishers in the world, countries like Ghana, Kenya and Nigeria are paving the way for Africa to emerge as the next big thing in gaming. As smartphones and tablets become more accessible, mobile gaming has taken hold across the continent. And as more people look for authentic characters and stories, African developers are standing out from their foreign competitors.
In a viral thread posted on X in January this year, a 23-year-old Russian man claims he used ChatGPT to filter through and chat thousands of women on Tinder, eventually proposing to one that was selected by the algorithm. The scale and success of his experiment sparked scepticism. Some raised doubts about the technical plausibility of it, while others voiced concerns about the ethical implications of such an endeavour. In an attempt to better understand his experiment, BBC Trending interviewed the Russian man and asked experts what they made of it. As AI becomes more advanced and accessible, the story also highlights broader concerns about the future of this technology in online dating. How will AI reshape the landscape of online dating in the coming years? What biases may be inherent in its algorithms? Is using AI in this manner a form of catfishing?
Myanmar is in the grip of a country-wide insurgency as armed resistance groups, including many young people from the cities, attempt to overthrow a military regime which seized power in a coup three years ago. As much as two thirds of Myanmar, mostly the countryside, may now be under the control of the resistance. Access is extremely difficult, hundreds of journalists have been jailed, but our correspondent Quentin Sommerville has managed to travel to Karenni and Shan states – in the east of the Myanmar - with young revolutionaries. Some have taken up arms, but others - doctors and teachers - are supporting the insurgency with skills of their own.Presenter: Quentin Sommerville
Producer: Lindle Markwell
Editor: Penny Murphy
Sound Engineer: Andy Fell
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashmanimage: KNDF graduates in Myanmar. Credit: BBC
The global perfume industry is worth billions. Some luxury brands sell for hundreds of dollars a bottle. But BBC Eye Investigations has discovered that, when the sun goes down in Egypt, there is a hidden human cost to this industry. In the summer of 2023, the BBC visited four different locations in Egypt’s main jasmine-growing area, Al Gharbia, and found children - some as young as five - working at night to pick the jasmine that was supplied to some of the world’s leading perfume brands through factories in Egypt. The UN’s Special Rapporteur on contemporary forms of slavery tells the BBC what it’s uncovered ‘may constitute the worst form of child labour’. We hear the story of one family who say they have no choice but to take their children into the jasmine fields to work, in order to earn enough money to live. Reporter: Natasha Cox
Producers: Ahmed El Shamy and Louise Hidalgo
Editors: Rebecca Henschke and Rosie Garthwaite
Sound engineer: Neil Churchill + James Beard
Chilean director and playwright Constanza Hola Chamy directs a professional cast and a community cast for her new play Mad Women, which highlights bipolar disorder. It is inspired by the lives of three outstanding Latin American artists: the Mexican painter Frida Kahlo, Chilean singer-songwriter and visual artist Violeta Parra and Columbian painter Judith Marquez, and their struggles with mental health. Felicity Finch follows Constanza as she and her international creative team collaborate and face the challenges of working with the two casts.
The rise of China is a defining challenge for the West. How far should it co-operate, compete or confront Beijing? And were Western countries slow to respond to China’s growing assertiveness? The BBC’s Security Correspondent, Gordon Corera, delves into the worlds of espionage, surveillance, technology, the theft of commercial secrets, free speech at universities and political interference to explore the points of friction. In this documentary, he speaks to spy chiefs, former prime ministers and dissidents as well as those on the frontline of this Shadow War.
What's the price journalists pay for telling the truth? For many it's exile. We'll hear from two colleagues, TV presenter Shazia Haya from BBC Pashto and Nina Nazarova from BBC Russian, both living and working in exile.Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)Show less
In the United States, questions are being asked after two beauty queens, Miss USA and Miss Teen USA, stepped down in as many weeks. The sudden and controversial resignations have put the spotlight on a global, multi-million dollar business. We get a broader overview of what it is like to take part with former winners from Germany, Finland and Nigeria. Presenter James Reynolds also hears from two pageant judges and an organiser on how protections are put in place for those taking part.
Hervé lost a leg in a motorbike accident. On the eve of the operation, he made a deal with God: “If I walk again, I'll go to Santiago.” He did walk again, but not on pilgrimage. Instead, he got caught up in his business affairs, had a burn out, tried to kill himself and spent several months in a psychiatric hospital before he decided to keep his side of the bargain. He set out, with crutches and a prosthetic leg, for Santiago de Compostela, a journey of 1,920 kilometres from his home in Brittany in north west France to the cathedral that contains the relics of Saint James at the tip of north west Spain. John Laurenson walks with him for a couple of days to hear his story and talk about life, God, pilgrimage.
The world of esports is a wide and varied domain which has captured audiences around the world. OJ Borg explores how Denmark is leading the way in embracing the sport. Speaking to star players, schools that have embraced it in their curriculum and the fans pushing it forward, OJ investigates Denmark’s esports revolution.
Long Covid can ruin lives, and scientists are striving to understand the condition and beginning to get some early clues about possible treatments. While there are still more questions than answers, though, many have turned online for help. But could what they find there sometimes do more harm than good? Rachel Schraer goes undercover to investigate the Lightning Process, a controversial treatment programme for Long Covid being promoted online.
Reporter: Rachel Schraer
Producer: Paul Grant
Editor: Flora Carmichael
The Caspian Sea is the largest inland body of water in the world. Bordered by Kazakhstan, Russia, Iran, Turkmenistan and Azerbaijan it spans 371,000 square kilometres and bridges Europe and Central Asia. It’s fed mainly by Russia’s Volga and Ural rivers and the sea is not only rich in oil and gas but is also home to numerous rare and endemic species, including the Caspian seal and 90% of the world’s remaining wild sturgeon. But the Caspian Sea is in crisis. Climate change and the damming of Russia’s rivers are causing the coastline to recede at an alarming rate. The sea’s levels have fallen by a metre in the last 4 years, a trend likely to increase. Recent studies have shown that the levels could drop between 9 and 18 metres by 2100. Last June Kazakh government officials declared a state of emergency over the Caspian. Iran has also raised the alarm with the UN. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent travels to Kazakhstan for Assignment to report from the shores of the Caspian Sea on what can be done to prevent an environmental disaster.
Zoë Barrett and Patrick Eley have a unique way of thinking about space. They know just how to guide people from A to B with ease, no matter how higgledy-piggledy the building or complex the environment. Zoë and Patrick consider every detail of their work carefully, with aspects such as shape, colour, typeface, graphic design, materials and iconography forming an integral part of their strategically placed signage and maps. Their job is to make sense of confusion with beautiful, simple, modern designs and attractive invitations to ‘walk this way’.
A bonus episode from The Global Jigsaw podcast. “China is not buying Africa, it is building Africa” is the view from Beijing. How is this landing with local audiences? There have been hints of a cooling down of Sino-African friendship. For this episode, the team travels to the Kenyan capital Nairobi to get a sense of Chinese influence on the ground, and understand why Beijing has chosen it as a hub for its media operation in Africa. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globaljigsaw or search for The Global Jigsaw wherever you get your BBC podcasts.Producer: Kriszta Satori Presenter: Krassi Twigg
The number of labels to describe different types of mental disorder has mushroomed in recent years. New categories include Oppositional Defiant Disorder, Prolonged Grief Disorder and Mild Cognitive Impairment. Many classifications have been created or influenced by a book called the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM). Advocates of DSM say labels help people take ownership of their situation, provide them with answers, treatments and social support. Critics think it creates stigma, medicalises normality and leads to a glut of unnecessary and harmful drug prescriptions. UK based musician Jay Emme asks if labels help or hinders in everyday life and whether it’s time to drop the terms ‘mental’ and ‘disorder’?
Park Jung-oh defected to South Korea from the North 26 years ago. Hearing how North Koreans in the Hwanghae Province suffer from food shortage, he started throwing bottles filled with rice and a USB stick into the Yellow Sea, hoping they would land on North Korean shores. Did his messages ever reach anyone? Rachel Lee from BBC Korean brings us this extraordinary story. Plus, Madina Dahiru Maishanu, the youngest presenter at BBC Hausa, shares stories from her award-winning show, Mahangar Zamani, and Thomas Naadi tells us about Stevie Wonder's love affair with Ghana.Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson.(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
Vast areas of the southern Brazilian state of Rio Grande do Sul remain under water after the worst flooding in 80 years. Homes have been destroyed, thousands are without power or drinking water, and entire towns remain cut-off. The torrential rains began in Rio Grande do Sul at the end of April, saturating the ground and bursting the banks of the Taquari and Caí rivers. Those rivers flow into the Guaíba, which has led to severe flooding in the state capital, Porto Alegre. We bring together three residents of Porto Alegre and volunteer rescue workers to share their experiences of the flooding.
When Father Père Basile was 12 years of age, he started thinking of a religious life. But it never crossed his mind that he would someday be living in a cloistered abbey in the south of France producing wine. This monastery has incredible history as it is the site of the oldest papal vineyard in the world, dating back to the 14th Century. When Pope Clement V moved the papal capital from Rome to Avignon in France, his palace needed a steady stream of wine and so the vineyard was planted in Le Barroux. Presenter Colm Flynn travels to the abbey to meet Fr Père Basile, and hears his amazing story of growing up as the son of wealthy, world-travelling diplomats, and turning his back on that to pursue a deeper calling in life.
A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. EncroChat: The crime family brought down by their violent messages.
The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.This programme contains descriptions some of you may find upsetting.
A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast. Manni Coe’s brother Reuben has Down’s syndrome, and had become isolated and non-verbal in a UK care home during the Covid pandemic – so he decided to stage a lockdown rescue mission.
For more extraordinary personal stories from around the world, go to bbcworldservice.com/liveslessordinary or search for Live Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: May Cameron
In 1897 British colonial forces attacked and looted the ancient Kingdom of Benin in what is now southern Nigeria. Thousands of precious objects were taken, including stunning sculptures made of bronze, brass, ivory and terracotta. Some were decorative, some were sacred. Known collectively as the Benin Bronzes, they were famed for their craftsmanship and beauty. The majority ended up in museums around the world. But ever since, Nigerians have been demanding their return. The Bronzes became symbols of the wider global campaign for restitution by former colonial powers. Now finally, some have been handed back. Peter Macjob travels to Nigeria to track the return of the Bronzes, and find out what it means for Nigeria to have these lost treasures come home.
Outside of a war zone, South Africa is one of the most dangerous places in the world. The country’s murder rate is now at a 20-year high. With trust in the police falling, communities say they have no option but to defend themselves. BBC Africa Eye’s Ayanda Charlie joins two volunteer units, a team of farmers near Pretoria, and a group in Diepsloot, a poor township near Johannesburg. We see the risks they take, and ask who holds patrols accountable.
Enter the magical world of children’s writer Cressida Cowell. She created the hugely successful How to Train Your Dragon series, which continues to excite children across the globe and has been turned into Oscar nominated animated films. For her latest series, Cressida explores teenage magic and Iron Age warriors. As she works on the illustrations for the second book in this new trilogy, The Wizards of Once: Twice Magic, she gives fellow children’s author Michael Rosen an insight into how she creates these worlds.
The BBC's new Global China Unit tell Faranak Amidi about their investigation into Chinese mines overseas, and what it's like to work in them and live near them.Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
The pandemic stopped most of us travelling anywhere, but now the United Nations predicts that international tourism will soon return to pre-Covid levels. While that might be welcome if you’re making money from tourism, the number of visitors can also cause problems. Hosts James Reynolds and Lukwesa Burak discuss how you balance the tourist dollar.Residents of Venice, Bali and Spain’s Canary Islands discuss their concerns, ranging from a lack of infrastructure and non-tourist housing to cultural insensitivity and the distribution of tourism income.“Tenerife has about one million residents and six million tourists visit every year,” says Brian. “With over 36 percent of the population living in or at risk of poverty, it’s obvious that mass tourism has failed the islanders.”We also discuss the role of travel influencers who share videos and photos with a mass audience on social media. Kristen Sarah in Costa Rica, who runs @Hopscotchtheglobe vlog, says: “As influencers, it’s our messaging that encourages and inspires others to follow in our footsteps,” she says. “A photo is just a photo. But if you don’t take in the place that you’re visiting, then what’s the point of even going?”A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.
In the heart of Colombia, very special Christmas celebrations take place not in December but in February. Its roots lie in the days of slavery when many Afro-Colombians were serving their masters' festivities during that time. In an act of cultural and racial resistance that has been preserved for nearly 200 years, Christmas celebrations in Quinamayo are held 40 days after the traditional birth date of Jesus and the amount of time that the Virgin Mary is said to have rested after delivery, and right after the end of harvest season. Christina Noreiga asks how the celebrations came about and why they have a special magic for both young and old.
The small rural town of Igbo-Ora in south-western Nigeria proclaims itself to be the “twin capital of the world". It has an astonishingly high twin birth rate. Everyone here wants to have twins because in Yoruba culture they are believed to bring good fortune and are celebrated almost as deities. And yet, in another part of Nigeria, near the capital Abuja, a different community once viewed twins with fear. Twins were seen as the manifestations of evil spirits. There were even reports that some twins were killed as infants. Nigerian journalist Peter Macjob visits both communities, to hear about the lives of twins and explore the power of traditional beliefs.
The process of childbirth can be painful yet amazing, but at times and in some places, also very dangerous. Recorded in Malawi, East Africa, Claudia Hammond is joined by a panel of maternal health experts to figure out why it is that the equivalent of a large jumbo jet full of women die every day due to pregnancy or childbirth. Together, they examine how so many women can still be at risk during this period despite a greater access to healthcare. They also look into whether an eighty-year-old drug could be a game-changer when it comes to haemorrhage. Plus, they consider a study of 1.3 million women which asked what it is that women actually want from maternal healthcare. With Owen Chikwaza from the Malawi Ministry of Health, Linda Mipando of Kamuzu University and Elimase Kamanga-Gama, Director of the White Ribbon Alliance Malawi, Claudia looks at the many challenges and successes within the field, drawing from local experiences to offer global insights. Produced by: Margaret Sessa-Hawkins
Editor: Holly Squire
Production Coordinator: Siobhan Maguire
Presenter: Claudia Hammond
Studio Engineers: Andrew Saunderson and David Sproule (Photo: Pregnant woman being examined by a doctor. Credit: Holly Squire BBC)
Hear from the journalists and whistleblowers behind the World of Secrets investigation, The Disciples, which tells the story of the cult of Nigerian prophet TB Joshua. Presenters Charlie Northcott and Yemisi Adegoke, producer Rob Byrne and whistleblowers Rae and Ajoke explain how the investigation came about. Plus, the presenter of season one of World of Secrets, Rianna Croxford, reveals how she investigated allegations of sexual exploitation made against the former CEO of fashion giant Abercrombie and Fitch.
Hosted by Hannah Ajala, presenter of the Love, Janessa podcast, and recorded in front of an audience in London.This episode contains references to sexual, physical and psychological abuseIf you have been affected by any of the issues in this podcast, please contact support organisations in your own country. For a list of organisations in the UK that can provide support for survivors of sexual abuse, go to bbc.co.uk/actionline.If you are suffering distress and need support, details of help available in many countries can be found at Befrienders Worldwide: befrienders.org.
Last year in Italy the biggest anti-mafia trial in 30 years reached a climax. On the stand were the Calabrian ‘Ndrangheta: they are estimated to run 80 percent of Europe’s cocaine and to make more money in a year than McDonalds and Deutsche Bank put together.With access to mafioso-turned-collaborator Emanuele Mancuso, journalist Francisco Garcia looks at why Emanuele testified against his powerful family. What has this trial meant for the 'Ndrangheta? And has it changed life for Calabrians today?
Indian artist Abhishek Singh’s comic books have sold more than half a million copies and been translated into Italian, Spanish, French and English. His interpretation of the Indian myth, Krishna: A Journey Within, was the first graphic novel by an Indian writer and artist to be published in American comic book history. Abhishek has long included environmental themes in his work, but after travelling round the mountains and forests of India, and spending time with elephants in particular, he realised that most mythic tales concern kings and queens and battles, all about humans and human activity. He decided it was time to create a new non-human mythology, one which centres on our vulnerable environment and the animals who live within it. Paul Waters joins him in Delhi as he paints one of his pictures for his new graphic novel The Hymns of Medhini.
Nataliya Zotova of BBC Russian tells us how Yulia Navalnaya has stepped in for her husband since his death and how there is somewhat of a precedent for this in Russia. Plus Ikechukwu Kalu explains how the BBC Igbo social media team use proverbs to connect with their audience. Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
The war in Gaza has triggered demonstrations at dozens of universities thousands of miles away in the United States. There have been hundreds of arrests as police have gone in to break them up and remove the protest camps that have been set up. Amid the heightened tensions, three Jewish students with different views towards Israel and its government, share their experience on campus and the impact on their studies.. We also hear from protesters at two Ivy League universities in the US, Colombia and Harvard. One describes witnessing the police raids. They explain their motivation for being part of the protest and reflect on whether their actions might have possible repercussions in the future.
Dating in the Jewish world can be a struggle - different denominations, beliefs, being Kosher or not Kosher, ideologies and geography makes navigating this world difficult to decode. Amie Liebowitz talks to matchmaker and dating coach Aleeza Ben Shalom from Netflix's Jewish Matchmaker and goes on her own quest to learn about the traditional and religious values of matchmaking.
South Africa is marking 30 years of democracy this year, reflecting on the remarkable transition from apartheid that captivated the world. While some South Africans are celebrating, others are questioning whether the promises of democracy have delivered. The BBC’s Nomsa Maseko embarks on a personal journey, starting from the polling station she accompanied her mother to in April 1994, to meet the people who fought for South Africa’s freedom, built its democratic institutions, and are seeking to improve their own lives today. She asks all of them: what does 30 years of democracy mean to you?
A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast.
Evy Mages grew up in and out of foster care in 1970s and 80s Austria. But even when she started a new life in the US, she was haunted by traumatic memories of a strange yellow house high up in the Alps, where she had been placed as an eight-year-old. It took an idle internet search in her 50s to reveal that this was actually an institution called a 'Kinderbeobachtungsstation', or 'child-observation station', where vulnerable children were experimented on by a psychologist using shocking methods. She decided to step back into her past to uncover the full, disturbing truth of what happened there. Evy's story first appeared in the New Yorker in 2023. Presenter: India Rakusen Producer: Edgar Maddicott Editor: Rebecca Vincent Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com or WhatsApp +44 330 678 2707
It's a quarter of a century since Kosovo emerged from a brutal war, one which pitted local ethnic Albanians against Serbs. Twenty-five years on, the government in Pristina is pressing ahead with reforms that could reinforce its separation from Serbia. They include banning the use of Serb dinars and curbing the import of things like Serb medicines. Pristina says the moves are needed to curb illegality and tax-evasion. But they’ve brought widespread complaints from local Serbs who feel victimised. Is the government justified in claiming there’s a rising risk of violence, or are the restrictions themselves making this more likely?
Wangari Mathenge used to be a high-flying corporate lawyer before turning to her first love of art. She likes to express herself through her colourful palette, large-scale figurative paintings and immersive installations of places she has lived and worked. For this In The Studio, arts journalist Anna Bailey follows Wangari as she creates her next immersive experience, a life-sized replica of her Nairobi studio, where she invited 20 female domestic workers to have a day of rest, while also painting them for a new series of work which looks at the plight of female domestic workers in Kenya. Wangari also invites listeners into her Chicago studio, where she working on the next painting in the series. But as Anna finds out, rest is not only important to the workers but to Wangari herself. Presenter and producer Anna Bailey Executive producer Andrea Kidd.
Over the past twenty years, paintings from a private collection of Russian and Ukrainian modern art have been sold to museums and private collectors around the world. Paintings were sold for hundreds of thousands of pounds from the Zaks collection, as it’s known. It was said to include over 200 oil paintings of some of the most treasured Russian and Ukrainian avant-garde artists, including those by El Lissitzky, Exter, Goncharova and Popova, putting it among the largest in the world. This has caught the eye of three art detectives and the BBC’s Grigor Atanesian follows them, along with forensic experts, to discover more about the collection, what’s been happening and if the paintings are real or worthless fakes.
How is disinformation created and spread, and how is it impacting the way journalists work? We'll look at what's going on in Latin America, Russia and Nigeria with the help of three World Service journalists: Luis Fajardo is a senior editor with BBC Monitoring, covering South American media; Olga Robinson, also with Monitoring, is a disinformation analyst specialised in Russian affairs; and Olaronke Alo is part of the Disinformation Unit in Nigeria. Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson (Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
After months of delays, US politicians agreed a $61bn aid package of military assistance for Ukraine to support their fight with Russia. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky said it could save thousands of lives in the war and President Joe Biden said it would make the world safer. In this edition, host Luke Jones hears from Americans who continuously raise support of their own for the Ukraine war effort. Many have family or friends in Ukraine and their fundraising supports everything from vehicles to medical aid to art therapy.
On the southern shores of Vietnam, whales are revered as gods of the oceans. Eliza Lomas visits whale temples and a whale cemetery, hearing about the roots and rituals of the belief. We learn how worshippers’ lives are entwined with the sea, joining a festival where whales are honoured with a ceremonial journey. With lives at sea full of risk, we hear how these sacred creatures ensure fishermen a safe return to land.
Sweden has a global reputation for championing high taxes and social equality, but it has more dollar billionaires, relative to its population size, than almost anywhere else on the planet. Stockholm-based journalist Maddy Savage untangles the rise of the super rich, from the country’s booming tech sector to wealth and taxation policy shifts. She also delves into the deep-rooted cultural norms which can discourage Swedes from celebrating money, and investigates the rise in impact investing, as some of Sweden’s richest business leaders plough their cash into new startups prioritizing social and environmental sustainability. A Podlit AB production.
From deepfakes to the fear of AI taking jobs, to the social media giants making money from abusive content, our technology dominated world is in a crisis – what are the solutions?AI researcher Kerry McInerney applies a feminist perspective to data, algorithms and intelligent machines. AI-powered tech, and generative AI in particular, pose new challenges for cybersecurity. Kerry proposes a new take on AI, looking at how it can be used on a small scale, acknowledging culture and gender, tailoring the technology for local applications rather than trying to push for global, one size fits all strategies.And in addressing corporate responsibility for Big Tech, Kerry discusses how tackling harassment online requires an understanding of the social, political and psychological dimensions of harassment, particularly of women in the wider world, as opposed to seeing this as a technical problem.Dr Kerry McInerney is a research fellow at the Leverhulme Centre for the Future of Intelligence, University of Cambridge, and the AI Now Institute.This is the last of four programmes from the Oxford Literary Festival, presented by Nuala McGovern, produced by Julian Siddle.Recorded in front of an audience at Worcester College Oxford.
For three decades Armenians ruled Karabakh – literally “Black Garden” – an unrecognised statelet inside neighbouring Azerbaijan. Many saw it as the cradle of their civilisation. But as Azerbaijan retook control last autumn, the entire population fled in just a few days. It was a historic catastrophe for Armenia. But the world barely noticed. How is Armenia coping with its loss? Can 100,000 refugees rebuild their lives? And will the cycle of hatred that caused the conflict ever be broken? Grigor Atanesian reports.
Philip K. Dick's novella The Minority Report was famously adapted into a science fiction blockbuster by director Steven Spielberg in 2002. More than 20 years later, it is now being adapted for the stage by writer David Haig and director Max Webster. Mark Burman goes behind the scenes of this bold adaptation, as the clock ticks down to opening night.
A bonus episode from the What in the World podcast.
Korean shamans hold significant cultural importance in Korean society. They are often portrayed in Korean dramas and films, adorned in shiny and colourful traditional attire, dancing on sharp knives, summoning spirits, and banishing demons. They offer fortune telling services and perform rituals to help people with their personal issues. In South Korean media, shamans are often portrayed as deceitful characters who misuse their status to manipulate people and profit from others… but that negative image is slowly changing as young shamans are modernising their approach. They now have shrines in the busy centre of Seoul and they've become big on social media, even offering consultations online. BBC journalist Soo Min Kim has been speaking to shamans and their customers about why people go to see them and how social media is making them more accessible.
How do you prepare for the worst-case scenario? Juna Moon has been talking to young people in South Korea about how they perceive the threat of war in the region and how they’re planning for it. Growing up in Taiwan after the 1999 Jiji earthquake, Joy Chang has been trained on what to do in case another quake hit. So when the ground started to shake in early April, she knew exactly what to do. Plus Hernando Álvarez shares the life advice he received from Nobel Prize winner Gabriel García Márquez, and the story behind a handwritten note listing the author's favourite books.Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice GioiaGabriel García Márquez' list of essential classics:1. The Bible
2. One Thousand and One Nights
2 (a) Plato and Aristotle
3. The Odyssey
3 (a) The Illustrious Philosophers. Diogenes Laertius
4. Sophocles: Oedipus
5. The Twelve Caesars (Suetonius)
6. Plutarch
7. The Divine Comedy (Inferno)
8. Horace (Poetry)
9. El Cid (Ballads)
10. Amadis of Gaul
11. Don Quixote
12. Poetry: Spanish Golden Age
13. Gargantua and Pantagruel
14. Paradise Lost - Milton
15. Chroniclers of the Indies(Photo: Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
The situation in the Middle East is being described as uncharted territory following strikes involving Iran and Israel. This is framed around the war between Israel and Hamas, now in its seventh month. Three people in Israel share their experiences with host James Reynolds. Avi, Lianne and Liah describe what it was like when Iran launched drones and missiles at their country and how the Hamas-led attack of 7 October continues to impact every moment of their lives.
What if you carry an inherited surname that you feel is profoundly un-Christian? Should you keep it or change it? Robert Beckford is going through this dilemma. His surname is a slave name, a brand of ownership passed down from his enslaved African ancestors in Jamaica. Over time, Robert has grown deeply uncomfortable with the meaning of this name and now wants to find a more spiritual alternative. He embarks on a journey of self-discovery, considering whether he should change or keep his inherited name.
An eight-year-old girl holds two cards in her hand. She places several plastic poker chips into the middle of the dining room table and makes a bet. Science writer Alex O’Brien has been teaching her daughter how to play poker for three years. She believes that the game will give her daughter important life lessons for the future - critical thinking skills, empowerment, controlling emotions and understanding psychology, probability and risk. But when the game is associated with casinos, gambling and men (95% of players are male), not every one agrees with her decision - including poker players.
An eight-year-old girl holds two cards in her hand. She places several plastic poker chips into the middle of the dining room table and makes a bet. Science writer Alex O’Brien has been teaching her daughter how to play poker for three years. She believes that the game will give her daughter important life lessons for the future - critical thinking skills, empowerment, controlling emotions and understanding psychology, probability and risk. But when the game is associated with casinos, gambling and men (95% of players are male), not every one agrees with her decision - including poker players.
Could going vegan help feed the world and save the planet? While industry and energy production are often singled out as the main drivers of climate change, the global meat production industry is a bigger polluter. Veganism advocate Gary Francione and nutritionist Dr Ron Weiss join Nuala McGovern to discuss the pros and cons of veganism. While it might make sense from an ethical and climate change perspective, it is a massive cultural leap for many. We ask whether veganism could really be useful in places where food might not be readily available. And answer concerns over whether a non-meat diet can provide adequate nutrition.
Reggaeton’s the soundtrack to Puerto Rico. The globally popular music reflects what’s going on in the cultural and political scene of the Spanish-speaking Caribbean Island.It started out as underground music in marginalised communities but was criticised for allegedly promoting violence and being too sexually explicit. Reggaeton has since been used as an anthem to overthrow a local governor and a way to criticise the island’s complex relationship with the United States. It’s also evolved from misogynist roots to reach new audiences in the LGBTQ community. Jane Chambers travels to Puerto Rico to meet the people and hear the music which is both maligned and revered.
A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast.
Israel says 99% of the missiles and drones fired by Iran on Saturday night were intercepted without hitting their targets. Iran said the assault was in response to a deadly attack on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Syria two weeks ago. Now all eyes are on how Israel will respond to Iran's unprecedented move. James Reynolds talks to the BBC’s Chief International Correspondent, Lyse Doucet, who says the attack marks “a whole new chapter” in the relations between Iran and Israel. James is also joined by the BBC’s security correspondent Gordon Corera, and Siavash Ardalan from BBC Persian, to discuss how the players at the centre of this confrontation might decide their next move. The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists worldwide. We’re keen to hear from you, wherever you are in the world. We want your ideas, stories and experiences to help us understand and tell #TheGlobalStory. Email us at theglobalstory@bbc.com You can also message us or leave a voice note via WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480. The Global Story is part of the BBC News Podcasts family. The team that makes The Global Story also makes several other podcasts, such as Americast and Ukrainecast, which cover US news and the war in Ukraine. If you enjoy The Global Story, then we think that you will enjoy some of our other podcasts too. To find them, simply search on your favourite podcast app. This episode was made by Richard Moran. The technical producer was Annie Smith. The assistant editor is Sergi Forcada Freixas and the senior news editor is Sam Bonham.
Danish landscape architect Helle Nebelong is a pioneer of the natural playground movement. Natural playgrounds are made of natural materials, rather than plastics, but they also encourage creativity and independence rather than rule-based games.
In The Studio follows Helle as she faces her biggest challenge yet - designing one of America's largest natural playgrounds, at Colene Hoose School in Normal, Illinois.
Dr Zoe Williams talks to researchers and clinicians around the world as she investigates how and why the care of women has been so neglected, and what moves are afoot to change that. She examines the historical inequalities in the diagnosis and treatment of women, particularly in the area of heart disease. There is an abiding myth that men are much more likely to suffer heart attacks than women, but heart disease is the number one killer of women in the US, and the British Heart Foundation estimates that nearly 10,000 British women would still be alive over the last decade alone had they received the same quality of care as men. This is a global problem. Dr Zoe Williams is a general practitioner in the NHS. She's also the resident doctor on ITV's This Morning and a regular expert on the BBC's The One Show. Producer: Alison Vernon-Smith Executive producer: Susan Marling
What is it like to work in Jerusalem right now? BBC journalist Shaina Oppenheimer shares her experience of living in Israel and monitoring the conflicting narratives published on Israeli and Palestinian media. Plus, BBC Mundo's Alicia Hernandez explains why Equatorial Guinea is the only African country which has Spanish as one of its official languages and shares the unusual local Spanish words she discovered.Produced by Caroline Ferguson and Alice Gioia
Sudan has experienced a year of civil war. It’s been described by the United Nations as “one of the worst humanitarian nightmares in recent history”. Over the past 12 months, we’ve heard from people in Sudan living through the violence and destruction. More than 14,000 people have died and more than 8 million people have been driven from their homes . In this edition, with Luke Jones and James Reynolds, we hear from Omnia, a recent college graduate, whose been separated from her family for a year. Her life stopped when the fighting began: “I have experienced displacement four times. I have experienced living in a war zone under bombings and shellings and mass shootings. Life has changed completely from what it was. But I would also say it’s a year of resilience and strength that I did not know I had in me.” Another of our guests is Samreen. She is an aid worker in Sudan, herself displaced by the war. She describes how overwhelmed she can be by requests for help: ”Knowing that you’re an aid worker, they ask you for stuff, they ask you to flee the country, they ask you to get to other safer locations, they ask you to help them in asylum seeking and there’s so little that we can do.” A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team.
A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast: Washington’s antitrust cases against Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta
The US government is suing some of the biggest tech companies on the planet – Amazon, Apple, Google and Meta – in antitrust cases. The face of Washington’s crackdown is Federal Trade Commission Chair Lina Khan, the youngest person ever to hold the post.So, who is the woman taking on Silicon Valley? And can she succeed? To answer these questions, host Adam Fleming speaks the BBC's North America business correspondent Michelle Fleury and former North America tech reporter James Clayton.
An episode of Heart and Soul from our Archive.
Dr Jennifer Bryson interrogated suspected Al-Qaeda terrorists at the infamous Guantanamo Bay. She worked at the detention centre in Cuba for two years and says that some of the inmates bragged openly about helping to organise the terrorist attacks of 9/11 that killed 3,000 people. Bryson was the first woman to take up the role of lead interrogator at Guantanamo, and the first who was not a member of the military. She would carry out interrogations herself but was also responsible for signing off methods and techniques used by other interrogators. After some time, she started to feel uneasy about some of the 'enhanced interrogation' methods she was asked to approve, such as playing extremely loud music to inmates for prolonged periods, exposing them to strobe lighting, etc. In her gut, she felt something was not right. She says it was her faith-formed conscience that led her to deny her colleagues’ requests to use such interrogation techniques.What are the moral challenges of this work for a person of faith? Are 'enhanced interrogation techniques' ever justified? What if these methods help to prevent more deaths in the future? In this edition of Heart & Soul for the BBC World Service, Colm Flynn explores these questions with Dr Jennifer Bryson. He discovers how her faith guided her through what she regards as the most radical time of her life.Producer/ Presenter: Colm Flynn
Series Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Production Coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
Editor: Helen Grady
A bonus episode from the What in the World podcast. When it comes to elephant conservation, Botswana is the world leader. It is now home to more than 130,000 elephants — or around a third of the world's elephant population. But this growing number poses major problems for humans: the animals destroy homes and crops, and even injure and kill people. To manage its elephant population, Botswana allows so-called “trophy hunting”. Hunters from abroad pay for permits to shoot and kill elephants — and can then take a piece of the elephant home. Botswana then re-invests this income into conservation efforts. It’s a controversial practice. Animal rights activists want Botswana’s government to seek alternatives to trophy hunting, which they deem as cruel. And in Germany — Europe’s biggest importer of African elephant trophies — the government has suggested there should be stricter limits on importing them. The president of Botswana recently threatened to send 20,000 elephants to Germany as part of the dispute. Shingai Nyoka, a BBC reporter in neighbouring Zimbabwe, explains the laws that govern trophy hunting and why they’re up for debate. And John Murphy, a BBC News reporter in London, recounts his experience visiting an “elephant corridor” — regular routes taken by elephants in their daily commute between their feeding grounds on one side and water on the other. Instagram: @bbcwhatintheworld WhatsApp: +44 0330 12 33 22 6 Email: whatintheworld@bbc.co.uk Presenter: Hannah Gelbart with Shingai Nyoka Producers: Alex Rhodes and William Lee Adams Editors: Verity Wilde and Simon Peeks
New Caledonia is an island archipelago in the south Pacific. It has an incredible diversity of birds and plants. Its history includes a period serving as a 19th century penal colony for the French colonisers and being an allied naval base during World War Two. An agreement signed 26 years ago about how the islands are run is expiring. But talks to make a new one are bogged down, as the opposing sides - French settlers and indigenous Kanak - both demand their rights. For Assignment, Peter Hadfield has been to New Caledonia to see if a new deal can be made.
Public swimming pools are more than just concrete and water. Often, they are the heart of a community, a place to exercise, to meet people and connect. Paralympic gold medallist Ellie Simmonds explores what it takes to design and build a swimming pool, and asks why they are so important in a post-pandemic era. She joins award-winning Dutch architects VenhoevenCS as they sign off their biggest project to date - the aquatic centre for Paris 2024. Their lead architects talk us through their plans for the new pool, looking at sustainability, accessibility and safety. She also hears from British architect, author and swimming advocate Chris Romer Lee about the importance of public pools, and why he thinks more of us should be getting into the water.
During El Salvador’s brutal civil war hundreds of children were separated from their families. Some were seized by soldiers during military operations against left-wing rebels, and later found living with new families in Europe and North America. Others were given up for adoption by mothers forced into poverty or displaced by the conflict. Three decades on some of those adopted are trying to piece together their lives and find their birth relatives. Former BBC correspondent in Central America, Mike Lanchin, follows their dramatic stories. Mike meets Jazmin who was raised in France and two sisters who managed to locate the son of one of their younger siblings and Flor who has long struggled to understand why her birth mother gave her up.
Ramadan is the ninth month of the Islamic calendar. It’s a period of prayer, celebrations and community gatherings and Muslims worldwide observe it by fasting from dawn to sunset. As this year’s Ramadan draws to a close, Faranak Amidi is joined by three BBC World Service colleagues who share their personal experiences and the stories that made headlines in their countries during this year’s celebrations.Asif Farooqi, Aalia Farzan and Deena Easa have been looking at how conflict, natural disasters and the cost-of-living crisis are impacting people in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Gaza. Plus... Ramadan cricket, why do people want to get married during the Holy Month, and the TV series that everyone’s talking about.Produced by Alice Gioia and Caroline Ferguson(Image: Presenter Faranak Amidi. Credit: Tricia Yourkevich)
The world was shocked to hear the news that the Princess of Wales is being treated for cancer. In her video message, Catherine encouraged everyone facing the disease not to lose hope. Presenter James Reynolds, speaks to young women around the world who talk candidly about their diagnosis; how it has affected them, their families and their approach to the future, particularly when their news came as young adults. According to research from the World Health Organisation, one in five people will develop cancer in their lifetime. Two young mothers talk about the challenge of explaining a diagnosis of cancer to their children.
As India completes 10 years of being governed by the Hindu nationalist BJP, Divya Arya explores the divergent political and religious views of different castes in modern day India. Despite government-led programmes to increase job opportunities and reduced caste based discrimination, inequalities still exist particularly in smaller towns and villages. Divya meets a young Brahman influencer who makes reels about her caste pride, a man from the lower Dalit caste who has moved away from Hinduism and another Dalit man who has joined an organisation with close links to the ruling BJP.
Imagine for a moment what it would be like to live in darkness underground for 80 days, while bombs and missile strikes rain down from above and rations are so tight you can only eat once a day. Next, imagine having to choose between feeding yourself and feeding your baby. This was the reality for those trapped in Azovstal steelworks in the Spring of 2022. Every day was a gamble with death. We meet the Ukrainian citizens and soldiers who survived to tell the tale.
The Nobel prize winning scientist Venki Ramakrishnan considers both why we might live longer and also the dilemmas this raises. In the last few years medical advance had led to treatments that really do offer the potential to tackle life threatening cancers and debilitating diseases such as Parkinson’s and Alzheimer’s. In discussion with Nuala McGovern, Venki also explores the questions such treatments raise. Initially they will be expensive, we already have a global society in which there is a direct link between life expectancy and affluence, will access to these treatments or lack of it, increase that disparity? And although your incurable disease may now be cured, what about the rest of your quality of life? Can the planet support an increasingly needy older and older generation? Does trying to live longer become a selfish act? Nobel prize-winning molecular biologist Venki Ramakrishnan heads a research group at the MRC Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge, England. This is the first in a series of four programmes from the Oxford Literary Festival, Presented by Nuala McGovern and produced by Julian Siddle. Recorded in front of an audience at Worcester College Oxford.
Belarus has huge numbers of political prisoners - around three times as many as in Russia, in a far smaller country. Almost industrial scale arrests began after huge, peaceful pro-democracy demonstrations swept the country in 2020 after Alexander Lukashenko claimed a landslide victory in presidential elections. Mr Lukashenko has been in power for 30 years. Protestors said the result was a fraud, and that they’d been cheated of their vote.Almost four years on, the authorities are still making mass arrests. Many of those detained are women. The most prominent woman prisoner, Maria Kolesnikova, a professional flute player, has been incommunicado for over a year, with no word at all reaching her family or lawyers. Political prisoners are made to wear a yellow patch on their clothes. The women say they kept short of food and made to sew uniforms for the security forces, to clean the prison yard with rags and shovel snow. They speak of undergoing humiliating punishments such as standing in parade grounds under the sun for hours.Yet they also tell us of camaraderie and warmth in their tiny cells as they try to keep one other going. And women on the outside continue to take personal risks to help the prisoners by sending in food, warm clothes and letters.
Maria Grachvogel’s design have been worn by many famous names including actors Emma Thompson and Angelina Jolie, as well as Spice Girl and now designer Victoria Beckham. As she celebrates 30 years in the fashion business, the BBC’s Rachel Royce follows Maria as she creates her new collection for her autumn-winter season 2024. From design sketches and colour palettes, to draping fabric over mannequins, Maria then always tries the garments on herself and her team before finalising every piece.
A bonus episode from the Lives Less Ordinary podcast. The Jordanian coach who started a refugee kids’ football team in the US after being rejected by her own family. For more extraordinary personal stories from around the world, go to bbcworldservice.com/liveslessordinary or search for Live Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Presenter: Jo Fidgen
Producer: Helen Fitzhenry
Who is behind the Crocus City Hall attack? Within an hour of last week’s deadly attack on a concert hall outside Moscow, a campaign was gathering momentum to blame Kyiv for the atrocity while a parallel storyline claimed it was a Russian false flag operation. We track the blame game: the narratives and the counter-narratives underpinned by generous doses of disinformation.
Producer: Kriszta Satori
Presenter: Krassi Twigg
BBC OS producer Kristina Völk has been following the lives of several people in Gaza since the beginning of the Israel-Hamas war in October last year. They have been in contact with her via voice messages, text updates or chats whenever they are able. Kristina shares the experiences across a timeline of six months of four women: Batool, Sanabel, Aseel and Layan. Kristina guides us through the messages that give a sense of the resilience, fear, strength and despair experienced under the bombardments of war.
The Eudist Servants of the Eleventh Hour is a Catholic order of nuns made up of mature women called to a religious life in their later years. It was founded by Mother Antonia Brenner – a twice-divorced, former Hollywood socialite and mother of seven, who ministered to the incarcerated for three decades in the notorious La Mesa prison in Tijuana, Mexico. At first the Catholic Church declined to support Mother Antonia – indeed, as a divorcee, she was unable to take Holy Communion herself for many years. Then Pope John Paul II gave her his blessing, and Mother Antonia began the process of forming a religious community. The order was founded in 1997. Mother Antonia died in 2013. But her work continues on both sides of the US/Mexico border through women who have vowed to dedicate the remainder of their time on earth – in the eleventh hour of their lives – to uplifting the poor. For these nuns it’s a kind of ‘encore’ dedicated to Jesus Christ. So, who are the women in their 50s and 60s who leave their often comfortable and privileged lives behind to minister in La Mesa prison and work with people who find themselves at the bottom of everyone’s pile? [Photo Credit: Sister Viola, one of the Eudist Sisters of the Eleventh Hour, in the women’s section of La Mesa prison in Tijuana, Mexico. The sisters visit the prisoners every day to pray with them and provide spiritual support. They also bring toiletries and treats.Photo by Tim ManselProducer/ Presenter: Linda Pressly
Producer: Tim Mansel
Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla
Series Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Production Coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
Sound:Tanzy Leitner
A bonus episode from HARDtalk, in-depth, hard-hitting interviews with newsworthy personalities.
Stephen Sackur is on the road in Guyana, South America, home to globally significant ecosystems and now one of the world's biggest offshore oil and gas reserves. As Guyana experiences record economic growth, will its people feel the benefit?
For a period earlier this month, the historic city of Chiang Mai in northern Thailand had the worst air of any city in the world.The city gained the same unwanted accolade last year. The practice of agricultural burning in the hills around Chiang Mai renders the air so toxic from February to April that it becomes unsafe to breathe. Respiratory problems and allergies caused by PM2.5, a type of pollution, led to more than 12,000 people being admitted to hospital in 2023.The bad air affects everyone, including the young and physically fit. In December 2023, Krittai Tanasombatkul, a 29-year-old doctor and basketball fanatic, succumbed to lung cancer. Like 40% of people with the disease in the city, he was not a smoker.
Victoria Uwonkunda makes an emotional journey back to Rwanda, where she grew up. It is the first time she has visited since the age of 12, when she fled the 1994 genocide with her family. Victoria retraces her journey to safety out of the capital Kigali, to the border with the Democratic Republic of Congo. Along the way she speaks to survivors of the violence – both victims and perpetrators - to find out how the country is healing, through reconciliation and forgiveness. Victoria meets Evariste and Narcisse, who work together on a reconciliation project called Cows for Peace. Evariste killed Narcisse’s mother during the 1994 genocide. And she meets Claudette, who suffered unimaginable horrors at the hands of a man, Jean Claude, sitting next to her as she tells her story.
A bonus episode from the Amazing Sport Stories podcast - The Black 14. Sport, racism and protests are about to change the lives of “the Black 14” American footballers. It’s 1969 in the United States. They’ve arrived on scholarships at the University of Wyoming to play for its Cowboys American football team. It was a predominantly white college. The team is treated like a second religion. Then, the players make a decision to take a stand against racism in a game against another university. This is episode one of a four-part season from the Amazing Sport Stories podcast. Content warning: This episode contains lived experiences which involve the use of strong racist language
Michael Volle is a baritone singer who has made his name with magisterial operatic performances, particularly Wagner. Helmut Deutsch has been playing the piano alongside the great and the good of the classical world for five decades, including the soprano Ileana Cotrubas and the tenor Jonas Kaufmann. Performing the 24-song cycle that Franz Schubert wrote at the end of his short life, Die Winterreise, or the Winter’s Journey, is considered the pinnacle of the recital repertoire, even for such accomplished musicians. The trust between singer and pianist must be absolute, because the two performers are, in Volle’s words, “naked and pure on stage”. Deutsch and Volle have a 20-year friendship and working partnership to build on, a musical connection that brings them together to perform this “summit” of singing over and over again. Yet their next performance will be something out of the ordinary. They are undertaking a staged performance at the Gran Teatre del Liceu, in Barcelona. The musicians will be joined by actresses on the stage, photographs accompanying the music, and newly developed poems interspersed between songs. How will the staging affect the relationship between singer and pianist, and how will it impact the music? Writer and journalist Lluís Amiguet joins rehearsals in Barcelona to find out. Image: Helmut Deutsch (Credit: Kartal Karagedik) and Michael Volle (Credit: David Ruano)
Since conflict broke out in April 2023, it has been almost impossible for international media to report from Sudan. In that time, stories of horrific violence and sexual violence have been told by hundreds of thousands of people who have fled the country. Feras Kilani, the BBC Arabic special correspondent, has just returned from Sudan, where he got a rare insight into life in the country. Mercy Juma, the BBC Africa correspondent also tells Lyse Doucet about the survivors of ethnic violence and sexual assault she met in Chad, the neighbouring country where hundreds of thousands have fled. The Global Story brings you trusted insights from BBC journalists around the world. We want your ideas, stories and experiences to help us understand and tell The Global Story. Email us at theglobalstory@bbc.com. You can also message us or leave a voice note on WhatsApp on +44 330 123 9480. #TheGlobalStory This episode was made by Richard Moran, Bethan Ashmead-Latham and Alix Pickles. The technical producers were Matt Hewitt and Hannah Montgomery. The assistant editor is Sergi Forcada Freixas and the senior news editor is Jonathan Aspinwall.
Bjarke Ingels is the Danish architect who is responsible for creating the flood defence project for Manhattan. In 2012 Hurricane Sandy saw flood water rise up to 2.4 metres. Lives were lost, the city’s transportation system was brought to a stand-still and the New York Stock exchange was closed for two days. As a child, Bjarke wanted to draw comic books and walk on roofs and the buildings that he’s designed include a power station with a ski slope. How can he build his sense of fun and creativity into vital protection against climate change?
Razia Iqbal meets Bjarke for The Cultural Frontline on the BBC World Service.
Long lines of tractors have become an increasingly common site in recent months on the streets of many European cities. In Poland, farmers blocked roads this week in protest at rising costs and competition from cheaper imports from Ukraine. Farmers have also been protesting in the UK, Hungary, Belgium, Spain, Greece and Italy on a range of issues from fuel prices to new environment rules. Given that more and more of us now live in cities, we wanted to understand the challenges farmers are facing – but also get an insight into their lives. Farmers in the UK, France and an aspiring farmer in Germany share their experiences, including Morgan, a farmer in the Brittany region of France: “I love my life, I love my job as a farmer, it’s one of the most beautiful jobs in the world because we take care of the nature, we produce good food for our communities,” she tells us. “But we deserve a decent living and we’re not getting it anymore.” We also bring together three farmers in India. With a forthcoming national election, thousands recently marched – once again – on the capital Delhi. They tell us why they farm and share with us their emotional connection to the land. A Boffin Media production in partnership with the BBC OS team. (Photo: Morgan Ody. Credit: Morgan Ody)
Next Year will mark 50 years since the start of a seven-year violent military dictatorship in Argentina. During this period, many who opposed the fascist regime were detained, kidnapped, tortured – and in some cases they disappeared never to be seen again. The Catholic church has always been very powerful in Argentina, and closely linked to the state. While some in the church were victims themselves, the hierarchy of the Church has been accused of playing a role in the dictatorship. At best, it has faced allegations of knowing what was going on and not doing enough to stop it. At worst, it has faced allegations of being actively complicit in some of the abuse the military was perpetrating. A group of mothers and grandmothers during this period set up a campaign to try and find their missing children. The ‘Madres’ and ‘Abuelas’ of Plaza de Mayo movement started on a pilgrimage in 1977, where the women wore the white cloth of their missing children’s diapers on their heads to identify themselves. Today, many of them are still looking for their children, and still identifiable by the white headscarves they wear to campaign each week. In this episode of Heart and Soul, the BBC’s Ione Wells and Jessica Cruz travel to Argentina to speak to some of the victims of the dictatorship. These include people who were kidnapped, detained and in some cases tortured themselves – sometimes in the presence of Church officials. And one of the ‘Madres’, aged 93, who still hopes to find her missing son before she dies. How did this affect their relationship with the Church? And how did witnessing atrocities like this impact their faith? Presenter: Ione Wells Producer: Jessica Cruz / Ione Wells Researcher: Emma Smith Series Producer: Rajeev Gupta
Thousands of people every day are on the move across Mexico towards the border with the US. But for migrants, this is one of the most perilous journeys in the world: land routes are dominated by powerful drug cartels and organised crime groups.In this episode of Border Stories, Linda Pressly hears terrifying stories of kidnap and extortion from those who have risked everything to enter the United States. The US/Mexico border has become the most important battleground for Americans in this year’s presidential election, but it seems no one can stop the men with guns who operate with impunity south of the border in Mexico.
The Philippines is one of the most at risk countries in the world to the effects of climate change, with typhoons becoming more severe. At the same time, it has some of the most expensive energy in Southeast Asia. The country currently relies heavily on imported coal. But a recent report by the NGO Climate Analytics found that, by 2050, the Philippines could get its energy entirely from renewable sources
On election day 2020, the people of Portland, Oregon - famed city of progressives and counterculture - voted to pass Measure 110, the USA’s boldest drug policy reform yet. It came after years of campaigning and was aimed at inverting the thinking of the war on drugs..
Measure 110 decriminalised possession of all illicit substances, including Heroin, Methamphetamine and Oxycodone. The campaigners accurately predicted that the new law would ease tensions around racial disparities within policing; but the new law coincided with the spread of the deadly and addictive drug Fentanyl and a tidal wave of homelessness.
Fentanyl is up to 50 times stronger than heroin and is now the drug of choice for nearly all heroin users. It’s also more deadly - activists and the police now regularly carry the opioid-blocking drug Narcan to treat people overdosing on the streets. Homelessness also continues to rise as the cheap and available fentanyl spreads -creating an epidemic on two fronts.In A Reckoning with Drugs in Oregon, local journalist Winston Ross explores the complex issues behind Portland’s fentanyl crisis, speaking across the political divide and to many of those in the eye of the storm.A Whistledown Production.
A story of humanity in the face of inhumanity.It starts with women from Malawi who travel to Oman in the hope of improving their lives. Instead, they find themselves trapped in servitude as domestic workers. BBC Africa Eye has spent months uncovering evidence of physical and sexual abuse through voice notes, videos, and texts. But as reporter Florence Phiri reveals, there’s a network of women working across continents, fighting to try to bring them home. Warning: Some people may find details in this story distressing.Presenter: Florence Phiri
Producers: Nicky Milne and Rob Wilson
Editors: Tom Watson and Rebecca Henschke
Sound engineer: Rod Farquhar
Irish author Colm Tóibín is among the world’s most celebrated contemporary writers. His works includes novels such as Nora Webster and The Blackwater Lightship, but also journalism, criticism, drama and more. His book Brooklyn was adapted into an Oscar-nominated film starring Saoirse Ronan, and his writing has been translated into over 30 languages. Alongside the release of his debut collection of poems, Vinegar Hill, Colm gives fellow Irish writer Helen Cullen an insight into how he works, taking her through his writing process, how he gathers his ideas and his approach to refining his work.
A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Panama Canal: It's running dry and it's going to cost us. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Haiti is facing its most most acute humanitarian crisis for more than a decade. There’s been a surge in violence with armed gangs in control of most of the capital. The prime minister has resigned, there’s a month long state of emergency and a curfew has been extended. The gangs have destroyed police buildings and, after storming a prison in the capital Port-au-Prince, thousands of escaped prisoners are back on the streets. Hosted by Lukwesa Burak and Luke Jones, they hear from Haitians caught up in this latest violence
They are the top questions asked to anyone who is fasting for Ramadan: no food or water? But what is Ramadan? Why Fast? And how do young Muslims manage Ramadan in their respective lives and work? Former teacher turned journalist Mehreen Baig goes in search of the answers by speaking to Muslims from different cultural backgrounds. She explores all aspects of fasting like abstaining from food, sex, music and of course…water.
In 2018 the US government under President Trump introduced a policy of “Zero Tolerance” at its border with Mexico. Anyone attempting to enter the US without documentation would be prosecuted, even if it was a first offence. If they were travelling with children, their children would be taken from them. The policy was cancelled within weeks but not before thousands of families had been separated. Six years on, several hundred are still to be reunited.
Migration is perhaps the most important battleground in this year’s presidential election. Both President Biden and his challenger, Donald Trump, have made recent visits to the border. And Zero Tolerance still resonates.Linda Pressly hears about the pain of separation as experienced by a man from Guatemala; speaks to the people still trying to put families back together; and asks if a new administration might turn again to Zero Tolerance in an attempt to deter would-be migrants to the United States.
It is hard to believe but the world is running out of sand. Our insatiable appetite for the substance that makes everything from skyscrapers to smartphones has led to environmental destruction in countries like Cambodia, where there has been a long history of illegal sand mining along the Mekong river. We are in the rapidly developing city of Phnom Penh to hear from the people whose lives and livelihoods have been threatened by the struggle for sand. Those who have fished the river for decades are finding that their nets are empty as the sand miners move in. People living alongside the Mekong have seen their houses crumble into the water as the riverbanks collapse.
A bonus episode from Lives Less Ordinary podcast. Miracle on the ocean floor. Have you ever locked eyes with a stranger and wondered, "What’s their story?" Step into someone else’s life and expect the unexpected. Extraordinary stories from around the world. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/liveslessordinary or search for Live Less Ordinary wherever you get your BBC podcasts.Producers: Eric Mugaju and Harry Graham
In 2021, with UK Covid restrictions putting plans for his creative collaborations on hold, British artist and musician Peter Beatty decided to take the plunge into animation. He wanted to create an animated film as a music video to accompany a song he had written called Tell Me Where to Go. To make things extra interesting (and complicated!) he decided to shun modern digital approaches and instead to build a multiplane camera – a meticulous, painstaking system for stop-motion animation invented by Disney Studios in the 1930s and now rarely used. He then set to work animating with his film-making/photographer friend Joseph Boyle. Neither had made a stop motion animation before, but their final film has won seven international awards - and counting!
A bonus episode from The Global Story podcast. Why young people are having less sex. The Global Story brings you one big story every weekday, making sense of the news with our experts around the world. Insights you can trust, from the BBC, with Katya Adler. For more, go to bbcworldservice.com/globalstory or search for The Global Story wherever you get your BBC podcasts.
Nigeria is experiencing its worst economic crisis in a generation. Over the past year the price of the staple food, rice, has more than doubled and a litre of petrol now costs more than three times what it did. Host Kupra Padhy hears what this means for people trying to make a living, feed their family or run a business. We bring together two women who run food businesses in the country. Onimba, a chef in Port Harcourt, tells us how on a recent visit to the market the price of a bag of sugar had doubled overnight. Plus, three health workers tell us how rising prices are not only having a direct effect on their families, but also their patients.
Eimer Ni Mhaoldomhnaigh is one of Ireland's leading screen costume designers - working on such productions as The Wind That Shakes The Barley, Jimmy's Hall and the recent, multi award-winning The Banshees of Inisherin. For many years she has also been compiling a collection of iconic items seen on the Irish screen. Eimer has been involved in the photographing of each item to museum standard, allowing the entire collection to be available online for anybody across the world to access, free. We follow Eimer as she oversees the meticulous photographing of her applauded and distinctive knitwear for the Banshees of Inisherin.
Science journalist Sue Nelson shares her personal journey to better understand a condition that affects millions worldwide. Inside her autistic inner world is a cacophony of brain chatter, anxiety and sensory issues - recreated within a 360 degree soundscape - that impact her life and interactions with others. Sue, who discovered she had autism last year aged 60, meets other autistic people, researchers and clinicians to try to make sense of her late diagnosis. Those who offer their own stories and experiences include Canadian actor Mickey Rowe, the first autistic actor to play the autistic lead character in The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Nighttime; award-winning science writer Dr Camilla Pang; and former teacher Pete Wharmby, who left the profession to write about his condition to help others.
Africa causes little damage to the climate but tends to feel the brunt of changing weather patterns. That was the debate in recent days as Kenya’s capital, Nairobi, hosted Africa’s first-ever climate summit. More than a dozen African leaders discussed the continent's increasing exposure to climate change and what that means for the environment, food supply and the economy. They also wanted to get their case together ahead of the next big climate conference, COP 28, which will be held in Dubai at the end of the year. We went around the continent to bring together some of those who are affected by climate change. We hear from farmers, environmental journalists and climate activists, with guests from Liberia, Nigeria, Gambia, Ghana, Malawi and Kenya.
Hear the marvellous sounds of Europe's last primeval forest, Białoweiza, in an immersive experience rich with all kinds of bird song and animal sounds, including that of the rare European bison. They're recorded by Polish field recordist Izabela Dłużyk.
Izabela is unusual as a young woman recordist, in a profession dominated by men - all the more so because has been blind from birth. She developed a special sensitivity to birdsong ever since her family gave her a tape recorder at the age of 12, and she at once turned its microphone towards the sky. She identifies species entirely though her ears, with an extraordinarily detailed depth of field.
Hearing the forest through Izabela’s acute ears, we venture into her world as well as that of the wilderness she loves. Recorded on location in Białoweiza, we also hear night and dawn recordings that bring all sorts of surprises to the microphone.
Produced by Monica Whitlock. Mixed by Neil Churchill
n the early hours of 14th June, a heavily overcrowded, rusty fishing trawler carrying as many as 750 migrants capsized off the coast of Greece. The passengers - men, women and children from countries including Pakistan, Egypt and Syria - were fleeing conflict and poverty, hoping to start safer and more prosperous lives in Europe.
After its engine broke down, the boat drifted for several hours while desperate passengers made distress calls and waited for rescue. Only 104 people survived the sinking. More than 600 may have drowned, making this one of the deadliest disasters in Europe’s ongoing migration crisis.
For Assignment, Nick Beake travels to Greece to meet survivors of the sinking, who are now living in a refugee camp outside Athens. He hears how they endured a four-day voyage, during which several passengers died due to a lack of food, water and ventilation on board. Brutal smugglers forced them to board the dangerous boat, and confiscated water bottles and life jackets to make room for extra passengers.
Many of the survivors have accused the Greek coastguard of causing the sinking by attempting to tow the heavily overloaded vessel. Greek authorities have denied these claims. Nick meets a Greek activist who volunteers for an emergency hotline that received distress calls from passengers on the ship. She explains that the June 14th disaster is not the first time the Greek coastguard has come under scrutiny, and it has previously been accused of using aggressive and illegal tactics to deter migration.
Presented by Nick Beake
Producer: Viv Jones
Studio mix: Graham Puddifoot
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
Slovakia may be a small country, but its upcoming elections could have a big impact across Europe and beyond. One of the strongest supporters of Ukraine in its war against Russia, Slovakia was the first Nato country to deliver fighter jets to its eastern neighbour. But could that soon change? September’s snap elections follow the collapse of Slovakia’s staunchly pro-Western government. Leading the polls is the populist party of former Prime Minister Robert Fico. The fiercely Moscow-friendly candidate has promised to end military aid to Ukraine, if he returns to power. John Kampfner travels across Slovakia to find out why the country looks set for a dramatic political about-turn.
Robyn Weintraub is a leading crossword designer who writes clues and fills in cells for the New York Times, famous for its challenging daily puzzles. She also creates for the New Yorker, People Magazine and the American Crossword Puzzle Tournament. Robyn is known for her distinct style, and keen readers recognise a “Robyn Puzzle” from the quotes and sayings she uses as hints.
Tara Gadomski follows Robyn over three intense days as she constructs a new crossword puzzle from blank page to completed grid. We get a glimpse of her long word lists and her daily puzzle-writing routine, and experience Robyn’s final verification - by pencil and paper - to make sure the puzzle is satisfying for the millions of people who will try to solve it then we discover whether Robyn’s puzzle has been accepted for publication by the New York Times
The US elections for the next president are not until November 2024, but the campaigning for votes is underway. And it’s two familiar faces who seem to be the ones to beat.
Host Lukwesa Barak hears from Democrats and Republicans across the country about what they make of their choices, and also from those who feel that neither party represents them.
Aaliyah grew up a devout Muslim but now makes adult content for the online service OnlyFans. She’s often pictured wearing a hijab. Aaliyah is her stage name. She’s had death threats but believes that expressing her sexuality and making her own choices about her body are empowering. She has also had support from young Muslim women and couples. She was brought up in the UK as a Muslim and began to question her faith at the age of 12, when her parents got divorced. She says, “My work now is definitely a rebellion against my upbringing. I’m tired of being told how women should be”. Aaliyah still describes herself as Muslim, and feels that her sex work is more important than the version of Islam she grew up with.
Can you be a sex worker and still follow your faith? Sex work has always challenged religion. Although it’s broadly considered immoral within Christianity, Islam and Judaism, sacred texts carry some mixed messages. Women sex workers often see male religious leaders condemning them in public, whilst buying their services in private.
In Bangalore in India, women at a sex workers cooperative think religion is compatible with their work. One Christian, who’s a mother and wife, says her family don’t know how she makes her living. “I can talk to God about it when I can’t talk to my husband”. In Nigeria, a Muslim sex worker we’re calling Zara operates in an area where sex work is illegal and dangerous. But she draws strength from her faith. “I know what God says about selling sex, that it’s against the religion but he understands that I have to do it.”
Gnawa music is a Moroccan spiritual musical tradition developed by descendants of enslaved people from Sub-Saharan Africa. It combines ritual poetry with traditional music and dance, and is traditionally only performed by men. But one female Moroccan artist, Asmâa Hamzaoui, has broken the mould. She's become an international star, who has even performed for Madonna on her birthday. For Assignment, reporter Myriam Francois travels to Casablanca to meet Asmaa and her family, and follows her to the Essaouira Festival, the annual celebration of Gnawa culture.
What does its ever-growing popularity tell us about the changing identity of a country that once saw itself primarily as part of the Arab world, but has now become more interested in its links to the rest of the African continent?
Presented by Myriam Francois
Produced by Tim Whewell
Series editor Penny Murphy
(Image: Asmâa Hamzaoui. Credit: BBC/Myriam Francois)
Gnawa music is a Moroccan spiritual musical tradition developed by descendants of enslaved people from Sub-Saharan Africa. It combines ritual poetry with traditional music and dance, and is traditionally only performed by men. But one female Moroccan artist, Asmâa Hamzaoui, has broken the mould. She's become an international star, who has even performed for Madonna on her birthday. For Assignment, reporter Myriam Francois travels to Casablanca to meet Asmaa and her family, and follows her to the Essaouira Festival, the annual celebration of Gnawa culture.
What does its ever-growing popularity tell us about the changing identity of a country that once saw itself primarily as part of the Arab world, but has now become more interested in its links to the rest of the African continent?
Presented by Myriam Francois
Produced by Tim Whewell
Series editor Penny Murphy
(Image: Asmâa Hamzaoui. Credit: BBC/Myriam Francois)
On 1st February 2021, a coup d'état began in Myanmar where the National League for democracy was deposed by Myanmar's military.
Students studying at the country’s higher education institutes were left with a decision: continue their studies under the new regime or walk out.
In this documentary - A New Term in Myanmar - more than two years on from the coup, we will hear from five students at Parami University sharing their experiences of studying during the coup.
Offering a US style Liberal Arts education, Parami University is one of many institutions offering people another chance to begin, or in some cases, restart their learning.
From dealing with electricity blackouts to writing essays about philosophy for teachers who are only ever a tile on a screen and usually on the other side of the world - each student shares how they are using education as both resistance and hope for themselves and their country.
Alongside them, we will hear from Parami University staff and academics who explain how education continues during conflict.
Names and voices have been changed on some contributors
With thanks to Dr Shona Loong, Dr Will Buckingham, Dr Kyaw Moe Tun and students at Parami University
Photo credit - Quinn - Student at Parami University
Producer: Mollie Davidson
A 7digital Production for BBC World Service
The French national team are known throughout the sporting world as "les bleus" because of their iconic kits, which echo the blue of the French national flag.
French sportswear brand Le Coq Sportif, in collaboration with the French Rugby Federation, have been creating and developing a new kit for the national squad ahead of France hosting the Rugby World Cup in September and October 2023.
Rosa Johnston-Flint talks to some of the creatives behind the design and manufacture of this new kit, and goes to Le Coq Sportif's factory in Romilly-sur-Seine, a small town not far from Paris, to watch the first shirt being made with fabric especially created in France.
Rugby is a rough contact sport, so how do you make a jersey that can withstand tackles while being as light as something worn by a cyclist and looking elegant under the spotlight of a home world cup?
Presenter/producer: Rosa Johnston-Flint
Executive producer: Andrea Kidd
More than 60 people are currently feared lost at sea after trying to escape Senegal by boat for a better life in Europe. According to the UN, Africa accounts for only 14 percent of the global migrant population. Most Africans also migrate internally but, due to the recent tragedy from Senegal, we decided to focus on those - both skilled and unskilled - who want to leave the continent for elsewhere. Host James Reynolds and his colleague Lukwesa Burak hear from men and women across four countries in Africa to discover the many reasons why they want to leave.
We also hear from two unemployed mothers, one of whom is prepared to temporarily leave her young child with relatives in order to secure her own and her daughter’s future.
A co-production between the BBC OS team and Boffin Media.
Baptist minister Dr Martin Luther King Jr delivered his "I have a dream" speech on 28 August 1963 to crowds of over 250,000 in Washington DC as part of the Great March, which called for jobs and freedom for African Americans. It helped spur the passage of the US Civil Rights Act of 1964. On the 60th anniversary of this legendary speech, Emmy award-winning journalist Sherri Jackson meets speakers from differing religious backgrounds and experiences to talk about how they have been influenced by Dr King's words. They discuss the details of his vision, and the role of faith in securing social justice and in anti-racism protest today.
Produced by Nina Robinson
Series producer: Rajeev Gupta
Production coordinator: Mica Nepomuceno
In 2020 Belize was broke. Again. This small, climate-vulnerable, Central American nation is home to the western hemisphere’s longest barrier reef. And it was about to default on a debt of over half a billion dollars. Enter an American NGO... The Nature Conservancy (TNC) is the world’s largest conservation charity. TNC made an offer to the government of Belize: it would help restructure the debt, if Belize would channel the savings made into its precious coastal resources. In 2021, the deal became reality – creditors were paid off, and investors found for the new, so-called ‘blue bond.’ Belize’s debt shrank by 12% overnight. A win-win, right?
But as Linda Pressly finds on a trip to Belize for Assignment, the ‘blue bond’ hasn’t been universally welcomed. There are concerns about an international NGO having influence in a poor nation, and arguments about which Belizean marine organisations have benefitted from the new investment. And there is one unresolved question: what does the ‘blue bond’ agreement mean for the potential future exploration of offshore oil in Belizean waters?
Presenter/producer: Linda Pressly
Sound engineer: Neil Churchill
Editor: Penny Murphy
(Photo: Replanting corals to restore Belize’s barrier reef is critical work in an era of climate emergency. Credit: Fragments of Hope)
Neurodivergent students learn, think, and process information differently than their neurotypical peers. Because of this, they often face unique challenges in the school setting. Students may struggle with executive functioning skills, typical social and communication skills and have sensory processing difficulties. As a result, they may be more likely to experience anxiety, depression, and many other mental health crises - resulting in a difficult education in which they won't receive the grades or social experience that they could achieve. This programme uses the Østerskov Efterskole school in Denmark as a case study to determine whether their revolutionary LARP (Live Action Role Play) teaching techniques could aid the education of every neurodiverse pupil.
World famous violinist Nicola Benedetti starts her new job as Director of the Edinburgh International Festival. Anna Bailey follows her as she enters unchartered territory, commissioning new works and running an organisation. Nicola talks through her decisions for her first programme, which features over 2000 artists from 48 countries. And Anna follows the progress of some of those artists as they begin rehearsals in the Scottish capital.
Madagascar is experiencing its worst famine for over 30 years. With successive years of drought, this began in the country’s deep south but as successive cyclones hit Madagascar in 2022 and 2023, people in the south-east are now also suffering from food insecurity. The United Nations has described this as the “world’s first climate-induced famine”. But some climate scientists claim there is little evidence suggesting global warming is the primary cause. Journalist Raissa Iousouff travels to the south of Madagascar in search of answers and meets many of the local people and communities who are fighting to survive.
It is the deadliest wildfire in the United States in more than a century. On the Hawaiian island of Maui, block after block of the seaside town of Lahaina lies in ruins. Only the twisted wreckage of buildings and charred vegetation remain among the ashes. More than 100 people have been killed. Host James Reynolds speaks to Ella, who lost her family home in the fires and with two volunteers, Uilani and Alison.
After the horrific role played by the German military in the Holocaust, arguably the last place you would expect to find a Jew would be in the German Armed Forces. And yet it is estimated that today there are around 300 practising Jewish military personnel, and since 2021 they have had their own chaplain, the first chief rabbi – and the first non-Christian - in nearly 90 years. With the help of serving personnel and the head of the military rabbinate, Shelly Kupferberg explores what it means to be Jewish in today’s German armed forces. Shelly also hears from Michael Fürst, the very first Jew to sign up after World War Two, who is now the president of the association of Jewish communities of Lower Saxony.
Tens of thousands of Zimbabweans are fleeing their country, looking for work in the West, especially in the United Kingdom.
Last year Zimbabwe was the third largest source of foreign workers for the UK, behind India and Nigeria, and ahead of the Philippines and Pakistan, which have much larger populations.
A popular social media post reads: “the Zimbabwean dream is to leave Zimbabwe.”
Many of those leaving their country are highly qualified. They’re taking jobs in the British care sector, where there is a huge shortage of workers. They send much of what they earn back to their families in Zimbabwe. For those back home it’s often the only way to survive in a country with hyper-inflation.
Zimbabwe is about to go to the polls but few expect things to change. The economy is in dire straits and the opposition hasn’t been allowed to campaign freely. Some activists have been imprisoned or even killed. The ruling ZANU PF party, which has been in power since independence in 1980, shows little sign of losing control.
Earlier this year the UK gave Zimbabwean teachers “Qualified Teacher” status, allowing them to work long-term in the UK. Zimbabwean parents fear their children’s teachers will be the next to leave.
Zimbabwe’s latest skills exodus could break the country’s healthcare and education systems, which are already crumbling after decades of under-investment and corruption. For Assignment, Charlotte Ashton hears from Zimbabweans who’ve left, Zimbabweans who want to leave and Zimbabweans who say they can only dream of leaving.
Presenter: Charlotte Ashton
Producer: John Murphy
(Image: A well-used five US dollar note in Zimbabwe. Credit: KB Mpofu)
In the 15 years that Jordan Hogg has been a TV director, he has never worked with another disabled director. Whilst 18% of the population has a disability, this is not represented in many industries, but Jordan is attempting to change this in TV and Film. Jordan, who has cerebral palsy, speaks to those who are challenging and changing the industry from within. Alongside him is TV Producer (and close friend) Jules Hussey. They speak to Academy award-winning actors James Martin and Rachel Shenton, hear the impact their award wins have had on the communities they were representing and discuss the changes that they believe have the biggest positive effects on inclusivity in Film and TV.
Journalist Ellie House is bisexual. But before she had even realised that, it felt like big tech had already worked it out, with sites like Netflix and TikTok regularly recommending her LGBTQ content. Years later, Ellie goes on a quest to understand how the powerful recommendations systems that big tech companies use really work. She reconstructs her digital fingerprint, and hears from LGBTQ people around the world who are conflicted about the risks and rewards of being queer online.
Fashion designers and brother and sister duo, Christopher and Tammy Kane have been trendsetters in the fashion world since 2006. They’ve dressed celebrities and world leaders, blending a playful, sexy aesthetic with working-class realism. Now they're launching a brand-new club night in London, the More Joy Disco. But how does their upbringing in a small Scottish village inform the glitz and glamour of their event? And why is joy such a motivating factor for the pair?
Humans are returning to the moon for the first time in over 50 years. The multi-national mission is called Artemis and involves the most powerful rocket and capable spacecraft ever built, a space station in lunar orbit, and a permanent moon-base on the surface. At a special event at the Royal Geographical Society in London, Dr Kevin Fong speaks to three of the world-leading engineers who are making this possible: Howard Hu, Orion programme manager at Nasa, Sara Pastor, chief engineer at the ESA Ihab Gateway, Libby Jackson, head of exploration at the UK Space Agency.
A new season of the Saudi Pro League is underway, now featuring some of the biggest names in football. Cristiano Ronaldo, Karim Benzema and N'Golo Kante, among many others, have all signed-up to play in the country. It has shaken up the transfer window but it is not without its controversy. Former Liverpool captain Jordan Henderson, who signed for a Saudi club for example, was a vocal advocate of LGBTQ+ rights. But in Saudi Arabia, sexual activity with people of the same sex is illegal and can be punishable by death. Henderson’s rainbow armbands have been edited to grey in recent promotional videos. Host James Reynolds hears from three international football fans, Cassie, Alex and Evan.
The Rev Malcolm Rogers has been in charge of the most extraordinary church. St Andrews looks like an ordinary British Victorian church, but amazingly it’s just ten minutes from the heart of power in Russia, the Kremlin. His flock includes local Russian people but also many English speaking ex-pats and members of Moscow's international community. This would have been an unusual posting at any time, but he’s been there during a remarkable period. It included the diplomatic dispute over the Salisbury poisonings, the Football World Cup staged in Russia, the Covid Pandemic and now the war in Ukraine. It has put him in a sensitive situation at times, but it has also helped him to understand how the world is seen through Russian eyes.
Tens of thousands of Russian criminals – murders, rapists, robbers – were recruited from prisons by the mercenary group, Wagner, to fight in Ukraine. Now, after six months on the battlefield, the survivors have returned home, with official pardons. Many served only a fraction of their original sentences. And now, they're officially treated as heroes - protected by a new law which criminalises discreditation of anyone who fights on the Russian side in the war.
Already, some returnees are reported to have committed further serious crimes. One has confessed to the brutal axe-murder of his 85-year-old former landlady. In another case, an ex-convict believed to have served with Wagner has been charged with masterminding the killing of two children's entertainers, one of them a 19-year-old woman who was training to be a teacher. The murders in southern Russia provoked an outpouring of anger and grief, with thousands signing a petition demanding that the alleged ringleader - who denies any guilt - should get a life sentence if he is eventually convicted. But they know any punishment will probably be less severe, because the criminal records of former Wagner mercenaries have been wiped. They start their lives again from a clean slate, and if they re-offend, no previous convictions can be considered.
Reporter Arseny Sokolov talks to the mother of the murdered entertainer, to campaigners for prison reform - and to an ex-convict who fought for Wagner - to investigate what threat the returned mercenaries pose in their home towns and villages - and to assess the damage "legal nihilism" is doing to Russian society.
Producer: Tim Whewell
Editor: Penny Murphy
(Image: A poster showing Wagner Group servicemen with a slogan reading “Join the winning team” in St. Petersburg, Russia, 24 June 2023. Credit: Anatoly Maltsev/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
Subsistence fishing employs hundreds of millions of people around the world. It’s an enormous business worth trillions of dollars. It’s also a dirty business. High-cost diesel motors and expensive, inefficient lights consume huge amounts of fossil fuels, leaving a considerable carbon footprint. But these lights are essential. Venturing out onto the high seas in a small boat is always dangerous, but night fishing is absolutely treacherous, so although good lighting saves lives, it also requires a lot of power. We follow the female scientists who are developing solar tech to help fisherfolk in South East Asia reduce their impact on the environment, improve their health and put money back in their pockets.
In March 2022, seven months after the Taliban returned to power in Afghanistan, second level education was banned for girls, leaving around 1.1 million of them without access to formal schooling. Then in December that year, all female students were refused access to universities and colleges. But across the country, Afghan women and girls are fighting back, and defying the Taliban government by continuing their education in secret. Founded and, for the most part, staffed by women, secret schools have started to emerge from the shadows, offering online and in-person classes to those brave enough to attend. BBC Afghan broadcast journalist, Sana Safi, takes us inside two such secret schools, and into the hearts and minds of those who, despite the risks, refuse to be denied an education.
Fourteen-year-old Sri Nihal Tammana is on a mission to prevent billions of batteries going to landfill. After watching devastating fires cause by discarded lithium-ion batteries, the kind of batteries found in most modern consumer electronics, he decided to set up a not--for-profit organisation called Recycle my Battery. They have set up recycle points in shops and local businesses, evangelised about the importance of recycling batteries in schools and local temples and have partnered with the largest non-profit battery recycling company in north America, Call2Recycle.
Science fiction flourished from the earliest days of the Soviet Union. A rare space to explore other realms and utopian dreams of progress. But with the Soviet Union's collapse different narratives bubbled up. Many of them reactionary, imperial, violent with one sub genre flourishing above all - Popadantsy: accidental time travel where protagonists return to World War Two or the Imperial past to set the path of Russian history on the 'right' course, Historian Catherine Merridale explores how the once visionary world of Russian science fiction shifted in the time of Vladimir Putin to become a reactionary playground.
The crime writer Agatha Christie remains the best-selling novelist of all time even though her death was almost 50 years ago. Her fictional detective Hercule Poirot has attained legendary status, so for a modern novelist to breathe new life into the character is a considerable challenge. However, the English psychological crime author Sophie Hannah has been doing just that. In 2014 she wrote her first novel using Poirot as the central character and we follow her in 2018 as she prepares her third Poirot novel for publication, entitled The Mystery of Three Quarters. Felicity Finch next catches up with Sophie as her fifth Poirot novel, Hercule Poirot’s Silent Night, is due to be published.
Look at any fiction prize recently and odds are that you will find a Zimbabwean woman nominated, be it Tsitsi Dangaremba, NoViolet Bulawayo or Petina Gappah. But forget the glitz of the Booker, what is the situation inside Zimbabwe? Reporter Tawanda Mudzonga takes us on a literary tour of Zimbabwe to find out why it has produced so many talented and renowned women writers. Tawanda speaks to emerging authors like Siphiwe Gloria Ndlovu, Valerie Tagwira, Novuyo Rosa Tshuma and Sue Nyathi among others to explore what their writing can tell us about modern Zimbabwe.
The Women’s World Cup is underway and global attention is once again on women in sport. Host James Reynolds brings together Preeti Singh, a national and international basketball player for India, lawyer and former England netball player Eboni Usoro-Brown and Jennifer Jones, one of Canada’s most successful female curlers. They compare notes on the progress in their respective professions. We also get into the challenges for a sports woman after having children. Jamaica footballer Cheyna Matthews is currently playing in the World Cup and adds her thoughts.
The battle to keep the peace between people and elephants in northern Botswana.
The earth’s largest land mammal, the elephant, is an endangered species. Poaching, habitat loss and disease have decimated elephant populations. But not in Botswana, which has the world’s biggest population of elephants. In the north of the country, in the area around the remarkable Okavango Delta (the world’s largest inland delta), elephant numbers are growing and they outnumber people. This can pose serious problems for the human population, particularly local subsistence farmers. A crop raid by elephants can destroy a family’s annual food supply overnight. Elephants also pose a risk to life in their daily commute between their feeding grounds and their water sources.
John Murphy travels to the top of the Okavango Delta, to see what efforts are being made to keep both people and elephants safe, and to persuade locals that these giant animals are an asset not a liability. He also explores threats from further afield to this green jewel in the desert, the Okavango Delta, which animals and people alike depend on.
Presenter: John Murphy
Producer: Charlotte Ashton
Studio Mix: Rod Farquhar
Editor: Penny Murphy
(Image: Elephant wading in Botswana’s Okavango Delta. Credit: Brytta/Getty)
The world's most followed religion is changing rapidly. Hannah Ajala explores how church bells travelling from Italy to Nigeria herald Africa's new role as the beating heart of Christianity. The Marinelli family in Italy have been making church bells for nearly 1,000 years. But in recent decades demand from Italy has fallen as faith dwindles, whilst orders from sub-Saharan Africa have grown dramatically. Hannah Ajala follows the journey of the Marinelli bells to Nigeria where she interviews one of the country's most famous pastors, Dr Paul Enenche, about the rapid rise of Pentecostalism.
Brooklyn-based architectural practice SO|IL's designs grace five continents; they have garnered a reputation for crafting exquisite arts spaces. They are joined by musician Ben Lovett, one of the founding members of folk rock outfit, Mumford & Sons. When he’s not on stage, he puts his energy into reinvigorating tired music venues with his company TVG. Launching in 2016, TVG is now a leader in this field, helping to ensure the survival of spectacular independent venues which would otherwise be vulnerable to closure. The opportunity to design a cultural space is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for any architect. For every 100,000 homes, 5 museums and 1 concert hall are funded. In this episode of In the Studio, we’re afforded a rare opportunity to get behind-the-scenes and under the floorboards with the SO|IL experts as they describe how their philosophy and processes enrich and shape their buildings. Ben’s experience as a musician and performer, and now as a venue developer, provides him with a unique perspective on these types of spaces, understanding the needs of performers as well as those of the audience. He also grasps how these spaces can directly affect and inspire composers and other artists. The guests discuss what makes a successful performance space, and the importance of architecture in music's long-term development. Presenter: Ben Lovett Producer: Helen Lennard Image: Jing Liu, Ben Lovett and Florian Idenburg (Credit: Louise Orchard)
Millions of people around the world have been living under heat advisories due to record hot temperatures. The exceptional heat is being felt across Europe, the US, North Africa, the Middle East and Asia. Host James Reynolds hears from three farmers in South Africa, Nigeria and the UK about how they are having to adapt their work and methods due to the extreme conditions. We hear from three doctors in India, France and Australia about the warning signs of heatstroke and the cases they are having to treat due to exposure to the sun.
On a busy street in Los Angeles a group of people in yellow vests are holding a ladder against a lamppost. Up the ladder, 34-year-old Evan Clark is ripping down a sign that is nailed to the post. It reads “Jesus: The way, the truth, the life”. These are members of the Atheist Street Pirates, local activists who track and remove religious signs affixed to public property. They, along with other volunteers, interfaith leaders and progressive Christian pastors who have joined the pirates to remove signs, as they believe they interfere with creating a pluralistic society. Nastaran Tavakoli-Far travels to Los Angeles and joins the Atheist Street Pirates out on a hunt for religious signs,
Tunisia’s democracy is being dismantled by a president who claims he’s saving it from anarchy. Parliament has been dissolved, scores of judges sacked and opponents jailed. Once Tunisia - the north African country of just 12 million people squeezed between it’s much bigger neighbours Libya and Algeria - was a beacon of democracy. It was the first Arab country to overthrow it’s dictator Ben Ali in 2011 during what became known as the Arab Spring. Now a new authoritarian leader, Kais Saied, dominates the country. Tunisia faces numerous problems, from soaring prices and shortages of some basic foods - to thousands of migrants – many Tunisians - trying to flee across the Mediterranean to Europe.
Mike Thomson meets the sister of an activist who was imprisoned, an aspiring kickboxer who wants to settle abroad, a sub-Saharan migrant who’s lost his job and his home and a rapper, whose music helped inspire that 2011 revolution. What future faces Tunisia – democracy or dictatorship?
Presenter: Mike Thomson
Producer: Bob Howard
Mixed by Rod Farquhar
Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
(Image: Tunisians with Tunisian flags protesting against the constitutional referendum. Credit: Mohamed Messara/EPA-EFE/REX/Shutterstock)
For centuries, Kew Gardens was the flash point for a lesser known British imperial project – the collection of plants from colonised nations for political and commercial gain. Author and journalist Rosie Kinchen finds out about the work Kew is doing today to examine this, and looks into how the institution is supporting botanical science and conservation around the globe. Rosie speaks to curatorial and scientific staff at Kew, as well as taking a wider view on the role of plants in colonial history.
Acclaimed and award-winning Shakespearean, Gregory Doran, has directed every play in Shakespeare’s First Folio except Cymbeline. For him it’s one of Shakespeare’s most complex creations and he will be directing it for the first time as his swansong, as the Royal Shakespeare Company’s artistic director emeritus. From the start of the production’s rehearsal period until its first performance, we follow Gregory and his team as they get to grips with a play criticised and celebrated for its genre-busting, location-hopping, multiple plotlines, topped by the appearance of the god Jupiter descending from the heavens on an eagle.
The Euros 2022 saw the Lionesses finally ‘bring it home’ - the excitement and crowd numbers showed there was a huge demand for women’s football. Ahead of the Women’s 2023 World Cup this documentary explores whether opportunities for women have changed. What is the state of play for women’s football around the globe?
Prices almost everywhere are going up, which means most of us have less money to spend. At the heart of it is inflation, the rate at which prices are rising. It means paying higher costs for everything, from food to transport, clothes to power, and less on life’s luxuries.
Host James Reynolds has been bringing people around the world together to share their experiences of inflation. Three people living in cities in Asia, Africa and Europe describe their struggles to buy food and pay the rent.
We also speak to business owners, in Argentina, Senegal and Zimbabwe, including two who run restaurants. They give us an insight into how they stay solvent and share some advice on spending. They say that even when times are tough, people still want to go out to socialise with friends and family.
And two students, in Poland and Lebanon, tell us know they have taken on multiple jobs to make ends meet.
As a shaman, Sipa Melo is the beating heart of tribal faith and culture in a remote corner of north-east India, tucked in the shadow of the Himalayan Mountains. He's a healer, a story-teller and a protector of the natural world. Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent joins Sipa for a week of ritual, performing ceremonies to mark deaths and births and maintaining taboos that help preserve this mountainous region's indigenous culture and its rich wildlife. She hears about his determined efforts to encourage a new generation of trainee shamans and his worries about the changing values of the region as roads and hydro-electric dams end its isolation from the booming cities to the south.
Kaaps is a language widely spoken in the bleak townships of Cape Town, South Africa. It’s often denigrated as a lesser form of Afrikaans – the language that was used as a tool of white supremacy during the apartheid era. Spoken predominately by working class people on the Cape Flats, Kaaps is associated with negative stereotypes – its speakers denigrated as uneducated, "ghetto" layabouts involved in gang culture.
But a new, burgeoning movement led by hip-hop artists, academics, writers and film makers is actively changing that perception. They want to reclaim Afrikaaps to restore the linguistic, cultural and racial dignity of a formerly disenfranchised people. The writer Lindsay Johns travels to Cape Town to meet the activists determined to assert the worth and pride of the people who speak Afrikaaps.
Presenter: Lindsay Johns
Producers: Audrey Brown and Tim Mansel
Mixed by Neil Churchill
Production coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
(Image: Children in Lavender Hill, a township on the Cape Flats in Cape Town, South Africa. Credit: Brenton Geach/Gallo Images via Getty Images)
Many Western fashion brands source garments from Bangladesh, a country with a long history of producing affordable clothing. The industry suffered a devastating disaster in 2013 when the eight-storey Rana Plaza factory building near Dhaka collapsed, costing the lives of more than 1100 workers. Ten years on, Bangladesh has tried to reinvent its image: it has brought in safer working conditions and is positioning itself as a sustainable green textile producer. Despite the extra costs of becoming more environmentally friendly, the clothes Bangladesh exports remain surprisingly affordable. Fashion, film producer and workers’ rights campaigner Sheemtana Shameem asks how this is possible?
In September 2017, The International Olympic Committee announced that a century after France last hosted the Olympics in 1924, the games would be returning to Paris for the third time in its history. The 2024 games, are set to become the most sustainable games to date and are following a new model -which involves only two new construction projects for the entire games – The Aquatics Centre and Olympic Village. The bid therefore to design the only new permanent sports facilities for Paris 2024 was highly sought after. French journalist, writer and broadcaster, Agnès Poirier, follows the architects who have won this coveted contract - Cécilia Gross and Laure Mériaud.
France has questions to answer around inequity and its approach to policing. It follows days of violent protests after the fatal shooting in Paris, during a police traffic stop, of a 17-year-old boy of Algerian descent. The world also witnessed some of the country’s social issues laid bare, as anger around discrimination in some of France’s poorest areas spread across the country and came, once again, to the fore. In this edition, hosted by James Reynolds, we bring together young French men, mothers and those in public office from the capital’s suburbs to share their experiences of school, work and with the police.
Hannah Ajala, a Nigerian-British broadcaster explores the new generation of chieftaincy and royalty in Nigeria. She takes a closer look at some of the key aspects of an inauguration ceremony across various states in Nigeria, and the impact Nigerian royalty has within Diaspora. Hannah speaks to the new wave of Chiefs and Kings embracing this tradition and why they continue with this path whilst integrating more modern practices and preserving their ultimate beliefs.
In 2014, militants of the Islamic State group set out to destroy the ancient, minority Yazidi community of northern Iraq. Thousands were murdered, thousands of Yazidi women and children were enslaved and brutalised. Since the defeat of IS in 2017, the traumatized community has tried to recover. And yet, as Rachel Wright reports, more than 100,000 Yazidis remain stuck in camps, unable to return to their homes.
Photo: Bahar, a Yazidi survivor, holds a picture of her missing husband and son. She and her family were captured by Islamic State in 2014. (BBC)
Presenter: Rachel Wright
Producer: Alex Last
Sound Mix: Neva Missirian
Production Coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
Russia's once shadowy private military company Wagner hit the headlines around the world when the group’s leader, Yevgeny Prigozhin, ordered his men to march on Moscow. Although the insurrection was short lived, the impact is felt far and wide. The Global Jigsaw from BBC Monitoring examines the Wagner mutiny from the perspective of countries who have a reason to pay close attention.
The British artist, Shezad Dawood is known for his colourful textiles and multimedia artworks, often featuring music and VR to explore issues such as migration, the environment and climate change. His latest exhibition is inspired by the African American composer and musician Yusef Lateef and his 1988 novella Night in the Garden of Love. Join Anna Bailey as she follows Shezad creating his latest commission for the Wiels, Contemporary Art Centre in Brussels, along with his collaborator the American musician and percussionist Adam Rudolph.
The songwriter, poet and author, Nick Cave has a conversation about grief, faith and the spirituality of music with the Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby. Nick writes hauntingly beautiful songs – the themes of which tackle deep questions about humanity – often drawing from biblical sources. In 2015, NIck's son Arthur, died in a tragic accident at the age of 15, after falling from a cliff. Last year, Nick’s eldest son Jethro also died in Melbourne at the age of 31. Much of Nick’s art in recent years has dealt with grief, suffering and forgiveness. He reflects on this in his book, Faith, Hope and Carnage, written during the pandemic with the journalist Sean O’Hagan. And he openly explores love and loss with those who write to him on his online forum called The Red Hand Files.
Assignment tells the story of a young street trader from Lagos who ended up at the heart of an organ harvesting plot involving a senior Nigerian politician and a hospital in the UK. The young man was tested, trafficked and tricked into a plot to remove his kidney, to donate to the daughter of one of Nigeria’s most powerful politicians. As Mark Lobel discovers, the criminal trial and conviction is the first of its kind in the UK – and has led to police investigating more potential cases.
Presenter Mark Lobel
Producer Kate West
Editor Carl Johnston
Studio mix by Graham Puddifoot
Biniam Girmay stands on the brink of history as the first black African rider to win a stage of cycling’s biggest race: the Tour de France. After a hard upbringing as one of six children in the Eritrean capital Asmara, he has become one of the most talented riders from the continent in the sport’s history. We profile an extraordinary early life and examine the significance of what his achievements can mean for such an accessible sport, which, after more than 100 years, remains almost completely white European.
This programme contains racially sensitive language and themes that may be upsetting.
Matthew Xia is a theatre director and Olivier award-winning artistic director of the Actors Touring Company. As his alter ego DJ Excalibur, he performed to a global audience of over a billion as one of the headline DJs at the London 2012 Paralympic Opening Ceremony. His latest production is a futuristic hip-hop infused performance, Tambo & Bones, at the Stratford East Theatre in London. Written by the US playwright Dave Harris, this satirical play, which is part distorted clown-show, part absurdist Afro-futuristic lecture with robots, explores the commodification and commercialisation of the traumatic black experiences that have been portrayed on stage over the decades. Felicity Finch follows Matthew, his actors and creative team as they develop the work into a playful, funny and provocative show.
Race against time rescue stories have been among the dominating international headlines in the past couple of weeks. There was the missing sub in the Atlantic and before that the incredible survival of the four children who were stranded for six weeks in the Amazon jungle in Colombia. Host James Reynolds brings together other people who have survived against the odds after being lost in the jungle and at sea.
Prof. Robert Beckford interviews Barbara Blake-Hannah the UK’s first black news reporter who returned to Jamaica after just eight years after coming over as part of the Windrush generation. She talks about how racism lead her to embrace the Rastafari faith and what it means to her.
“It’s like living in a cemetery.” Jung Seongno lives in a banjiha, or semi-basement apartment in the South Korean capital Seoul. Last August parts of Seoul experienced major flooding. As a result several people, including a family of three, drowned in their banjiha. Seongno dreams of having a place where the sunlight and the wind can come in.
These subterranean dwellings are just one example of a growing wealth divide in Asia’s fourth largest economy. With almost half of the country’s population living in Greater Seoul, the struggle to find affordable housing has become a major political issue. It also contributes to Korea’s worryingly low birth rate. The inability of young people to afford a home of their own means they are not starting families. Many have given up on relationships altogether.
John Murphy reports from Seoul, where owning a home of your own is so important and yet increasingly unattainable.
Produced and presented by John Murphy
Producer in Seoul: Keith Keunhyung Park
Studio mix: Rod Farquhar
Production co-ordinator: Iona Hammond
Series editor: Penny Murphy
(Photo: Park Jongeon, his wife and dog live in this one room in one of Seoul’s poor housing districts. Credit: John Murphy)
There's a horrific and disturbing trade in the torture of Macaque monkeys that are filmed and sold online. Rebecca Henschke follows the trade in these videos from the USA to Indonesia to the UK. Who is making them, who is selling them and who is buying them? Why is it that monkeys being put through unimaginable pain is so attractive that people are willing to pay to watch it? Rebecca confronts the people at the centre of this worldwide trade.
Wayne McGregor is a choreographer and director whose future-focused, multi-award-winning works take inspiration from technology, literature and visual art. As resident choreographer for the Royal Ballet since 2006, he has created a catalogue of daring and beautiful dance pieces, pushing the artform in radical new directions. Reporter Eliza Lomas goes backstage at the Royal Opera House, following Wayne as he creates a brand new work. Called ‘untitled: 2023’, the piece developed in collaboration with someone he greatly admires - the late Cuban-American artist Carmen Herrera.
Fifty years on from the first mobile phone call, this programme examines how the device has revolutionised the way we lives our lives. It was 1973 when Martin Cooper, a Motorola researcher made the first mobile phone call to his rival at Bell Labs. The prototype weighed 2 kilograms and measured 23 by 13 by 4.5 centimetres. It offered a talk time of just 30 mins and took 10 hours to recharge. Fast forward five decades and checking the phone is the first thing many people do when they wake up in the morning and the last thing they do when they go to bed. How has the mobile phone revolutionised the way we live our lives?
Hundreds of wildfires are burning across Canada, almost half are classed by officials as ‘out of control’. Their immediate impact is the destruction of homes and businesses, plants and wildlife. But the smoke from those fires is affecting air quality. Maps tracking the spread of the smoke, have shown it covering large parts of Canada, as well as US cities such as Minneapolis and Chicago. We speak to families in Canada and New York who share experiences of the smoke from wildfires in Canada. Plus, mothers from India, Pakistan, and United States discuss the effect of air pollution.
There’s a debate raging in Switzerland over a potential nationwide ban on so-called conversion therapy. We meet Christians whose lives the procedure has changed forever. They explain how growing up in an Evangelical community, they struggled with their faith and sexuality from a young age – driving them to seek help. So-called conversion therapy has been around for centuries. The controversial practice is used around the world to try to change a person’s sexual orientation or gender identity. The issue has become a hot topic in in Switzerland, and the parliamentary process to potentially enact a nationwide ban is underway. Claire Jones meets the Christians working to change the law, and those who are against a legislative ban.
An investigation by BBC Eye exposes the men profiting from an ugly business of sexual assault for sale.
We find websites selling thousands of videos of men sexually abusing women on trains, buses, and other crowded public places across East Asia. You can even order your own tailor-made assault on these sites.
They’re run by a shadowy figure known as “Uncle Qi”. He’s hailed as a guru by an online community of perverts. But who is he?
The hunt takes Assignment to Japan, where sexual assault in public is known as "Chikan". We take you inside this dark and twisted world to hear from the perpetrators of these horrific crimes, and meet the women who are fighting back.
We visit a “Chikan” sex club where customers can pay to legally grope women in rooms decorated like trains; and we follow plain clothes police searching for sexual predators on Japan’s metro.
The investigation goes undercover to expose the identity of the men running these websites who are cashing in on sexual violence.
Presenter: Zhaoyin Feng
BBC Eye Producers: Aliaume Leroy, Shanshan Chen, Zhaoyin Feng
Assignment producer: John Murphy
Sound mix: Rod Farquhar
Production Co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross
Assignment Editor: Penny Murphy
This programme deals with matters of a sexual nature which some listeners may find disturbing.
In 1872, Yellowstone became America and the world's first national park. Alongside erupting geysers, bubbling hot springs, canyons, and bison herds, we uncover the pivotal role of art in winning over the public and convincing politicians to set aside this unique landscape, which today spans 2.2 million acres. Shirl Ireland is a landscape and wildlife painter from Gardiner, Montana, and naturalist and guide Ashea Mills, tread the same terrain as painter Thomas Moran and photographer William Henry Jackson.
The Old Oak will be Ken Loach's last feature film and Sharuna Sagar was granted exclusive access behind the scenes of this landmark movie. She joins the 86 year old director on his swansong as he brings together his loyal team for one last time. As with his previous two films, I, Daniel Blake and Sorry We Missed You, Ken returns to the North East of England, to tell the story of Syrian refugees who have been housed in an ex-mining village. With him are his long-standing partners, producer Rebecca O'Brien and writer Paul Laverty, and they reveal the secrets of Loach's success.
It’s 70 years since a New Zealand mountaineer and his Nepali-Indian Sherpa mountaineer guide reached the highest point on Earth. There have been celebrations in Nepal in recent days to mark the anniversary. Thousands of people have followed in their footsteps but this climbing season on Mount Everest is drawing international attention for the record number of climbers and the increased deaths on the mountain. James Reynolds hosts conversations that give us an insight into one of the toughest challenges on the planet, as well as the challenges posed by climate change and the overall impact on those who rely on the mountain to earn a living.
Jean Vanier changed Richard and Hazel’s lives. He founded the L’Arche movement – a global network inspired by Christian teaching – where people with and without learning disabilities live together in community. During his life, Vanier was hailed as “a living saint” and “a prophet”. But shortly after his death, a deep and disturbing secret emerged – that Vanier founded L’Arche to hide a mystical sex sect, coercing and abusing at least 25 women, all without disabilities. Richard and Hazel were stunned when they discovered the truth. Now they and 150 L’Arche communities are coming to terms with what has happened.
Russia is supplying the Myanmar military with advanced fighter jets and training their pilots how to use them in a war against their own people. More than two years on from the coup, the country’s military is facing a countrywide armed uprising and their troops are struggling to hold ground and recruit foot-soldiers. So, the strategy is turning increasingly to the air with devastating consequences. BBC’s Asia editor Rebecca Henschke follows those fighting back on the ground and in the air. And meets defectors from the airforce who give exclusive insight into the strategy and psychology behind those operating these deadly machines.
(Photo credit: Free Burma Rangers)
For years the people of Evin-Malmaison in north-east France have lived and brought up children in a town which is dangerously polluted. The Metaleurop Foundry attracted workers and their families, it provided life to the area - but it has now killed it with the pollution, which lies deep in the soil. Twenty years after the factory closed, the scale of the scandal has only just emerged, thanks to a new residents campaign. But who will takes responsibility? Marine Hay meets the families here who say they can't live with lead seeping into their water supply, but can't leave because, who would buy their houses?
Alberta is an award-winning Barbadian-Scottish multi-disciplinary artist whose work encompasses drawing, digital collage, film and video installation, sculpture, performance and writing. In this edition of In The Studio, Antonia Quirke follows the progress of a new painting, commissioned specifically for the exhibition. All is going well with the painting, until Alberta realises that it might be upside down.
The exact cause is unknown, but the mental health condition ADHD (Attention Deficit Hyperactivity Disorder) affects millions of lives around the world. Symptoms include hyperactive behaviour and maintaining concentration. To understand its effect a little more, we brought people together who are living with it. Two mothers in Kenya and the UK share their experiences of bringing up children with the condition. Host James Reynolds also hears from two couples living with ADHD in Nigeria and the United States, and rapper Jude MI Abaga.
One of the founding principles of the United States is that religion and politics, church and state, are separate. Yet today in America religious belief and politics have become inseparable. Self-styled "evangelical" Christians have become the dominant grassroots force in the Republican Party. "Evangelical" is not a denomination, it can mean different things to different people in terms of religious doctrine. The unifying principle seems to be in the political outlook of its adherents: deeply conservative in the 21st Century American political context. Michael Goldfarb explores the tension between a life of Christian faith and the dirty realities of secular politics.
Drought and hotter summers are killing Germany’s spruce forests. They’re a staple of the timber industry but are proving unable to cope with the consequences of climate change. Four out of five of Germany’s trees show signs of sickness, according to the latest survey of the health of the country’s forests. All tree species are affected. And although the last couple of years have seen more rain this hasn’t been enough to compensate for the damage already done.
One third of Germany is forested and trees are seen as a means of absorbing carbon emissions, as well as a source of wood for the building industry and heating. Forests are also a popular destination for recreation – hiking, biking or simply relaxing. Caroline Bayley has been to some of the country’s forests to find out what’s being done to rescue Germany’s trees before it’s too late.
Producer/presenter: Caroline Bayley
Editor: Penny Murphy
Studio: Engineer Rod Farquhar
Production co-ordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross
(Photo: Harz mountains by Caroline Bayley)
Brazil has one of the highest rates of trans and gender-diverse homicides in the world, and almost three-quarters of people killed each year are either black or mixed race. Many think the country's conservative and populist class explicitly targets Afro-Brazilians, whose voices are under-represented in politics and culture, despite making up more than half of the country's population. Frank McWeeny heads to Salvador to meet the queer and PoC collective Batekoo, who are changing perceptions by advocating for freedom of self-expression through music, dance, education and community politics.
Frank McWeeny heads to Beirut to meet the nightlife community behind the Grand Factory club, and explores how underground culture here survives even during chronic lack of opportunity. This scene is working tirelessly to remain active, while rebuilding both physically and psychologically. But how do you run a club in a country that is going through the worst economic and political crisis in its history?
What is it like to live through the collapse of your country, in a city you love and cannot bear to leave? Lina Mounzer is a writer and translator living in Beirut, and this is a question she wrestles with, both in her writing and her daily life. Lebanon has been in crisis since 2019 when the country’s financial system started to collapse - many people lost their life savings overnight. The 2020 Beirut port explosion then only increased people’s suffering. Lina speaks to friends, family and neighbours to hear how they are coping and trying to keep the spirit of the city alive.
Lawrence Abu Hamdan is an artist and forensic investigator of sound. He describes himself as a 'private ear’, listening to, with and on behalf of people affected by corporate, state and environmental crimes. Whether that’s determining the type of ammunition and location of gunfire from sound alone, drawing on earwitness testimony for evidence, or uncovering crucial information buried within noise. As a new exhibition of his work opens at the Museum of Modern Art in New York, presenter Eliza Lomas follows as he prepares for a performance, After SFX. This piece interplays storytelling with live sound design and percussion, drawing from the artist’s investigative work to explore various aspects of sonic memory.
Twenty years after the US-led invasion, four young Iraqis recall life under foreign occupation and share their hopes and fears for the future. Shedding a light on post-Saddam Iraq are: 26-year-old Dima who rebelled against religious extremists in her native Basra and has rediscovered a love of singing; Bassam, an enthusiastic environmentalist helping re-green the city of Mosul; Ahmed, a Kurdish graduate struggling to make ends meet in a local barber shop; and Baraa, a female publisher, whose message to the world is “Iraqis need a second chance.”
On a mission to make sense of the world. A new podcast, with hosts John Simpson and Claire Graham. Episodes released weekly from 20 May 2023.
The World Health Organization’s (WHO) latest figures suggest that nearly seven million people have died due to Covid - although the true figure is likely to be much higher. While many more contracted the disease and avoided being seriously ill, one estimate suggests 65 million people have not fully recovered. These are the people with long Covid, whose symptoms have persisted for more than six months after being infected. This month, the WHO said Covid-19 is no longer a “global health emergency”, though it still poses a danger. Host James Reynolds hears from those who feel forgotten and misunderstood.
In Britain, the growth of Islam is being driven by a younger population, born and brought up in the United Kingdom. This includes BBC reporter Rahil Sheikh. Having grown up against the backdrop of the ‘war on terror’ and rising Islamophobia, he has seen how young Muslims have turned to social media to forge online safe spaces where they can connect, celebrate and discuss their faith. Young Muslims say these social media stars explain the faith in a more relatable way than the imams or spiritual leaders they may encounter in the mosque. But in recent years, Rahil has noticed that some of these male Muslim influencers have been using Islam to advocate alpha masculinity as a way of combating liberalism and feminism. Critics – including some Muslim women - argue this is a misguided interpretation of the faith.
New Orleans is the murder capital of the United States: researchers into 2022’s crime figures say it suffered more homicides per capita than any other major city. Carjackings, armed robberies and other potentially lethal offences are also at sky high levels in ‘The Big Easy’ - a place better known for its happy mix of cuisine, carnival and colonial architecture.
Crime plagues many American cities, and some of these problems are down to familiar causes, with economic disparity, poor education and the prevalence of guns all at play. However, other factors appear unique to New Orleans, such as high incarceration rates; entrenched racial inequality and chronic police understaffing. Many people believe that the chaos and mistrust of authority which followed Hurricane Katrina’s devastation in 2005 has brutalised the generation which grew up in its shadow.
For Assignment, the BBC’s Anna Adams meets those at the sharp end of this crisis in her adoptive city, and asks what went wrong. But as she also discovers, the spirit of the Big Easy can still be resilient, with some local people stepping up to do their failing authorities’ work for themselves in a variety of different social projects. To the backdrop of the city’s ever-present music, this is the story of a community that is literally under fire, and fighting for its life.
Presenter Anna Adams
Producer Mike Gallagher
Sound mix Rod Farquhar
Production coordinator Helena Warwick-Cross
Series editor Penny Murphy
(Photo by CHANDAN KHANNA/AFP via Getty Images)
Introducing season 2 of an original podcast about hackers and North Korea. They’re back - in fact the criminals never went away. Season 2 begins at an ATM, possibly near you.
Sir Lenny Henry's new one man show - August in England gives an insight into the lives impacted by the Windrush scandal. In 2017, thousands of legal residents who arrived from Commonwealth countries from the late 1940s to early 1970s were misclassified as illegal immigrants and were wrongly detained, deported and denied legal rights. Their experience inspired Sir Lenny Henry to write and perform his very first one man show from the perspective of August, a grocer and father based in the West Midlands in England, who faces deportation from a country he has lived in for the past 52 years. Presenter Vishva Samani follows Sir Lenny as he prepares for his exciting playwriting debut at The Bush Theatre in London.
In recent days, Russia staged its annual Victory Day military parade, celebrating the defeating of Nazi Germany during World War Two, which ended in 1945. Host James Reynolds hears from two women in Moscow, against the backdrop of Victory Day. They talk about the roles their families played during the war 78 years ago, and how they feel about those fighting in Ukraine today. We also bring together three men in Russia to hear their thoughts about fighting for their country.
Cindy Sui discovers how the Chè-lâm Presbyterian Church in central Taipei has been helping Hong Kong activists who have fled to Taiwan since the introduction of the national security law. The Lunar New Year is a time when families usually come together and celebrate, but the Hongkongers that Cindy meets are unable to return to their homeland. Instead, they find support and a sense of community at the church which offers a service in Cantonese. In addition to spiritual support, the church meets their medical, psychological and social needs.
In the chaos following Turkey’s devastating earthquake in February, Omar was separated from his son Ahmed after both were pulled alive from the collapsed ruins of their home. Omar lost his first born and his wife but believes Ahmed could still be alive. Many children went missing in the aftermath of the earthquake. Some ended up in hospitals or childrens’ homes on the other side of the country and families have spent months trying to locate them. But for many of the estimated 3.5 million Syrian refugees, searching for lost loved ones is even harder - there are language barriers and a lack of money, or sometimes official I.D cards. Omar has enlisted the help of Nadine, a fashion designer before the quake, whose now trying to reunite Syrian families. She and her team find both success and heartbreak. Emily Wither follows Omar, a Syrian refugee, as he searches for his son across South East Turkey.
Producer: Phoebe Keane Producers in Turkey: Zeynep Bilginsoy, Musab Subuh
In recent years, dyed-in-the-wool New Yorker Kevin Kwan, author of Crazy Rich Asians, has made Los Angeles his home. The city is rich with art, fashion and intriguing social structures, all of which are key sources of inspiration for Kevin’s novels. Los Angeles has become his living and breathing studio, and going out into the city is a huge part of his creative process. In the first of several ‘deep dives’ into the LA life that sustains Kevin creatively, we attend the opening of a new show (featuring the work of artist Njideka Akunyili Crosby) at the Huntington Library, Art Museum and Gardens, out in Pasadena, where the old money families of LA live.
The fighting between Sudan’s military and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces started around three weeks ago. Since then, the UN estimates that more than a 100,000 people have fled the country and more than a third of a million have been displaced within Sudan. Host James Reynolds hears from some of those who have been forced to flee their country.
According to the national census, the number of British people who say they follow Shamanism as a religion has risen twelvefold in the space of 10 years. While the numbers are still low – at around 8,000 followers - the increase has put pressure on those who have followed the practice for years. The BBC’s Amber Haque visits a British shaman to find out what Shamanism is, what it means to her and her circle of believers and why they think it should be taken seriously.
Thousands of Kenyan villagers are being given free cash as part of a huge trial being run by an American non-profit, GiveDirectly.
Why? Some aid organisations believe that simply giving people money is one of the most effective ways to tackle extreme poverty and boost development. After all, they argue, local people themselves know best how to use the funds to improve their lives. But does it work? Is it really a long term solution? In 2018, the BBC visited a Kenyan village whose residents received money at the start of the trial. Five years on, the BBC’s Mary Harper returns to see what’s changed.
Photo: Woman frying fish in village in western Kenya (BBC)
Reporter: Mary Harper
Producer: Alex Last
Studio Manager: Graham Puddifoot
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
Production Coordinator: Helena Warwick-Cross
With special thanks to Fred Ooko
Charles III waited a very long time to become King. Since his investiture as Prince of Wales in 1969, he filled his life with activity, pursuing deeply held passions and causes – on the environment, farming, architecture, charities to help young people and projects to improve understanding between religious groups. We speak to the people who know him best, to explain the ideas and values which motivated him for so many decades. We discover how his many eclectic projects are rooted in his spiritual beliefs about the essential harmony of the universe and his reverence for the natural world.
The acclaimed British theatre director, Tinuke Craig embarks on her opera debut at the English National Opera with Blue, a tale of police violence in America and its impact on a New York family. The opera has been composed by the Tony award-winning Jeanine Tesori, with a libretto by Tazewell Thompson. Anna Bailey follows Tinuke and her operatic collaborators as she embarks on a challenging new chapter in her career.
People from all over the globe remember their meetings with King Charles III over the years. They include Dr Joe McInnes who took the former Prince for a dive beneath the ice of the North West passage in 1975, holocaust survivor Lily Ebert, Joseph Hammond who met the King when he visited a military cemetery in Ghana and former pop singer and Spice Girl Mel B who remembers several hilarious encounters with the King including one involving the former President of South Africa Nelson Mandela.
Fentanyl is a potentially deadly synthetic opioid. The other month, a drug enforcement official in the country described it as the single deadliest drug threat the US has encountered. It’s been around since the 1960s and small doses are used safely every day by medics for pain relief. But as an illegal drug, Fentanyl is blamed for more than 70,000 deaths in the US every year. We bring together two parents who lost children to the drug. George Gerchow in Colorado tells us that one of the hardest aspects is dealing with the stigma and lack of support from the community.
Professor Robert Beckford explores the Christian understanding of reparations. He speaks to Christians in Barbados who say reparations from the Church are now both justified and necessary. But their perspective is only one side of the story. In England, representatives from the Church of England and the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel articulate their understanding of reparations and why they believe it is unnecessary. Robert looks into Christian scripture to explore if there could be a theological case for the payment of reparations.
50 years after the last US bombs fell on Laos, they’re still killing and maiming. In an effort to stop the march of communism, between 1964 and 1973, America dropped over two million tonnes of ordnance on neutral Laos: on average, a planeload of bombs was released every eight minutes, 24 hours a day. This is more than was dropped on Germany and Japan in the entire Second World War.
Laos, today a country of just 6 million people, remains the most heavily bombed country in the world per capita. Five decades after the war, these deadly items remain a persistent threat and daily reality for communities across Laos. More than 20,000 people have been killed or injured by UXO (unexploded ordnance, unexploded bombs, and explosive remnants of war) in Laos since the war ended in 1975, with people still killed and injured every year. Around half the victims are children. But UXO doesn’t just kill and maim, it renders agricultural land useless and prevents economic progress. Although Laos is rich in natural resources, its development has been crippled by the legacy of the war.
Antonia Bolingbroke-Kent travels to Laos to tell its story 50 years on.
Producer John Murphy
(Photo: Clearing unexploded bombs in northern Laos. Credit: MAG / Bart Verweij)
Agatha Christie is the world's most translated author, with her work being available in over 100 languages. And one of her most beloved characters, Miss Marple, is about to be resurrected with the help of 12 contemporary authors. In The Studio talks to two of those writers: Dreda Say Mitchell who specialises in a different type of crime story, the gritty gangster genre, and Kate Mosse, who is known for her historical sagas. They reveal how they rose to the challenge of reinventing one of the most famous characters in 20th Century fiction.
We travel to Turkey's Anatolian heartland to find out whether the region which helped propel President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to power in the early 2000s will do it again in May's crucial election, despite widespread disappointment with the government's preparation and response to February's deadly earthquake.
“He’s a coward, he’s not a man.” Martine’s mum passes judgement on Farouk. A final push for answers takes Nawal to Yemen and Norway. And questions of betrayal ring alarm bells in London.
“He won’t wake up...I think he’s dead.” What Farouk did in the hours after Martine died and the bridges he burned to get away. Nawal’s investigation reaches a critical point. Will Farouk keep talking?
Friends panic when "street-smart" Martine fails to come home. Her family scrambles to help as a surprise move on Facebook makes something “click” with police.
The hunt for the suspected killer of 23-year-old Norwegian student Martine Vik Magnussen, whose body was found buried under rubble in a London basement in 2008. She died after a night out with "billionaire playboy" Farouk Abdulhak, son of one of Yemen’s richest and most powerful men. Police found Martine’s remains in Farouk's apartment building. But Farouk had already fled. Fifteen years later, he’s still on the run. The BBC's Nawal Al-Maghafi was born in Yemen and has been on the case for more than a decade. This is the story of how she finally tracked down the elusive Farouk Abdulhak.
To live in Sudan is to have experienced violence, protest, dictatorship, political instability and upheaval. But the scale of fighting during the last week has shocked many. Caught in the middle have been the people, as residential areas have been pummelled by missiles. Amid the crossfire, they have faced no power and no food and have had to decide whether to remain hiding in their homes or risk going outside. Three women from Khartoum - Dallia, Sara and Enass - share their personal situations and concerns with host James Reynolds.
What are the consequences of the Church of England's historic slave plantations in Barbados today? Theologian Robert Beckford considers why and how the Church's missionary arm, the Society for the Propagation of the Gospel, got involved in the slavery business. He travels to Barbados to hear from a range of voices who tell the story of how in 1710, the Church turned the Codrington Plantation into a missionary experiment. The original mission failed but later generations did eventually adopt the Anglican faith. However, spurred by the country becoming a republic, some are now questioning the Church's historic role in slavery.
Record numbers are fleeing the island in the wake of a brutal economic crisis – perhaps one in twenty five Sri Lankans left last year alone. Some 300,000 went for contracted positions, mostly in the Gulf. But hundreds of thousands of others took less official routes. Many of them get scammed, some even lose their lives, as illegal migrants in what looks like a web of corruption and organised crime.
Ed Butler speaks to some of those who are involved in this industry, who’ve taken this perilous option, and asks why aren’t more Sri Lankans, and even the government, speaking out more loudly about what some see as a national tragedy?
Produced and presented by Ed Butler
Production coordinator Helena Warwick Cross
Series editor Penny Murphy
(Photo by Abhishek Chinnappa/Getty Images)
Coming soon: The hunt for the suspected killer of 23-year-old Norwegian student Martine Vik Magnussen, whose body was found buried under rubble in a London basement in 2008. She died after a night out with "billionaire playboy" Farouk Abdulhak, son of one of Yemen’s richest and most powerful men. Police found Martine’s remains in Farouk's apartment building. But Farouk had already fled. Fifteen years later, he’s still on the run. The BBC's Nawal Al-Maghafi was born in Yemen and has been on the case for more than a decade. This is the story of how she finally tracked down the elusive Farouk Abdulhak.
Murder in Mayfair is a new four-part mini-series from The Documentary, available on 24 April.
Sam, Harsha and Siddhant are tech workers of Indian descent, who all say they have experienced discrimination in corporate America. They are not being singled out on the basis of race, gender, religion or nationality, but by an invisible factor; one they were born into, and one that others like them come to the US to try to escape. They say they have faced discrimination because of their caste.
Maggie O’Farrell’s historical novel Hamnet was published in 2020 to great critical acclaim, winning the Women's Prize. It tells the story of a gifted herbalist, Agnes Hathaway, who is married to a young William Shakespeare. We follow her on her journey as they meet, marry, and later come to terms with the death of their 11-year-old son, Hamnet. Now, the Royal Shakespeare Company is putting Hamnet on stage for the first time in Shakespeare’s birthplace of Stratford-upon-Avon. Presenter Dan Hardoon follows the RSC’s Acting Artistic Director Erica Whyman throughout the rehearsal process.
In the Persian gulf, a powerful storm appears to sink an oil tanker, prompting a dramatic Royal Navy rescue. But six weeks later, the same tanker causes a scandal when it drifts onto a luxury Bollywood beach in India - like a ghost. Environment journalists Dan Ashby and Lucy Taylor delve into the unsolved mystery, investigating allegations of murky goings-on.
A ground-breaking new medical trial has begun in the UK aimed at slowing the progress of multiple sclerosis. The Octopus trial is looking into whether existing drugs can be repurposed to help slow the progression of the condition. Alykhan, who was diagnosed with MS when he was still at school, is taking part in the study. He joins us in conversation with Professor Jeremy Chataway, from the National Hospital for Neurology and Neurosurgery in London, who is leading the trial.
In the heyday of the Sikh Empire, Kirtan (Sikh hymns) were performed using stringed instruments such as the sarangi, rabab and taus. The rich, complex tones these instruments create are said to evoke a deeper connection to Waheguru (God). But in the late 19th Century, these traditional instruments were replaced by European imports like the harmonium. Now a new generation of diaspora Sikhs is painstakingly rebuilding that musical heritage - restoring scores and meeting up to teach and learn traditional instruments. Monika Plaha meets one these musical pioneers, Harjinder Singh Lallie, and finds out how his beliefs fuel his work and how his music shapes his faith.
The Gran Chaco Forest is Latin America’s second largest ecosystem. It is a mix of hot and arid scrublands, forests and wetlands, part of the River Plata basin, so large it extends into Paraguay, Brazil, Argentina and Bolivia. Large parts of the forests have already been cleared to make way for farms. Now a new highway being driven through it is heralding further change. The so called Bioceanic Corridor will transport the produce of cattle ranchers and soya-bean farmers in Brazil and Paraguay across to ports on the west coast. Members of some indigenous communities like the Ayoreo see it as a further threat to their way of life.
The new road is being cautiously welcomed by some members of the Mennonite Community, a Christian religious group who came to the Gran Chaco 100 years ago via Prussia, Russia and Canada and bought land from the government to farm. Will the impact of the road on the indigenous and Mennonite communities - and the environment - be worth the economic benefits?
Jane Chambers travels across the Gran Chaco for Assignment. Produced by Bob Howard. The Paraguay producer was Santi Carneri.
Beyond Belief: The Life and Mission of John Hume is a new musical drama about the Irish politician who was one of the architects of the Northern Ireland peace process. Marie-Louise Muir goes behind the scenes of the production, staged in Hume's home city of Derry, with its director, Kieran Griffiths. She follows his young company of actors rehearsing for a major production which will be streamed live globally on the 25th anniversary of the signing of the historic peace accord, the Good Friday Agreement.
Investigative reporter Simona Weinglass leads a BBC Eye investigation into a criminal network, believed to have scammed more than a billion dollars from victims across the globe. The organisation sponsored a top-tier football club to promote its online trading platform, promising investors the chance of astonishing returns. We hear from victims, undercover agents and police, in a bid to track down who is in charge.
Container ships are the monsters of the seas - the very biggest are almost half a kilometre long and piled high with up to 20,000 huge boxes. At any one time, there are tens of thousands of these floating cities on the move, many unable even to dock at local ports. It’s our relentless demand for more and cheaper stuff that drives the industry. We meet the British salvage man who’s making millions from the boxes that get left behind, lost or abandoned - yet another example of how invisible the world of shipping is, even though the whole planet depends on it.
Image: Jake Slinn, founder of JS Global, at Felixstowe docks
Shipping has long been one of the most opaque of global industries. Now many operations in the oil sector, which accounts for nearly a third of all seaborne trade, have become still more secretive, following the West's imposition of sanctions on Russian oil. A new "dark fleet" of ageing tankers with obscure ownership, flying flags of convenience, has been formed to avoid the sanctions - and there has been a big increase in risky ship-to-ship transfers at sea, which make it easier to disguise the oil's origin.
The Laconian Gulf in southern Greece is a major hub for such transfers, and locals now fear any accident could cause major environmental damage in an area which depends on tourism and fishing. Tim Whewell witnesses the operations close-up, and talks to campaigners who believe the influence of powerful shipowners makes local authorities turn a blind eye to possible dangers. Who is responsible for policing the operations of ships in international waters? And where is the oil going? The war in Ukraine has led to a major reshuffling of trade flows, as Asia becomes an ever bigger market for Russian crude.
Presenter: Tim Whewell
Producer: Monica Whitlock
Bulk carriers are the ships that keep the modern world going - like the MV Raeda and the MV Olivian Confidence carrying grain from Ukraine to Turkey, and flour to Afghanistan and Yemen. Zig zagging across the oceans for months at a time, bulk carriers keep us all going even in times of war and pandemic. "If it didn’t grow in your garden," says broker Aysu Gurgan, "a bulk carrier brought it to you."
Steel, sand, coal, cement - the very fabric of the modern world - all of it reaches us on bulkers. Unseen by the very populations that rely on them, each bulker is also home to international crews who spend half their lives on board.
Presenter: Tim Whewell
Producer: Monica Whitlock
Funerals have been taking place for victims of the latest mass shooting in the United States. Six people – including three children aged 9 – were killed in the attack at the Covenant School in Nashville, Tennessee.
Official data suggests guns are the leading cause of death for American children and teens - even more than car accidents. Researchers have recorded more than 130 mass shootings across the US so far this year. Their data suggests incidents have gone up significantly in recent years. The term “mass shooting” is generally understood to be incidents in which four or more people have been injured or killed.
Meanwhile, the debate about gun violence in the US continues to be highly polarised.
In this edition, we bring together those directly affected, who share the impact it has had on their lives.
Abede Dasilva and Max Schachter discuss dealing with the aftermath of a shooting. Abede’s brother Akilah was killed in 2018 at a Waffle House restaurant, also in Tennessee. Max’s son, Alex, was one of 17 victims murdered in the Parkland School shooting in Florida in the same year. We also talk to Jennifer Hubbard, whose six-year-old daughter Catherine was murdered by a lone gunman at the Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Two mothers also tell us how they talk to their children about gun violence, and students in Tennessee send us messages about their protests against gun violence.
Mexico has become the most dangerous country in the world to be a Catholic priest. In the past 15 years, 50 were killed in narco-related violence. And the young men who enter the priesthood in the region of western Mexico known as Tierra Caliente, meaning "hot land", are at particular risk. They will have to work in drug cartel-controlled communities, may have gang leaders or members in their congregations, and will struggle with the ethical and theological dilemmas of publicly condemning these men’s actions at the risk of being murdered for speaking out. Even baptisms or delivering communion or receiving donations can prove extremely threatening: to refuse them any of the most sacred rituals of the Church is to defy the cartels. And few live to tell the tale, having refused to bend to the cartels’ demands.
The BBC’s Mexico correspondent, Will Grant, travels to Tierra Caliente to meet a group of seminarians. In recent years, their director was attacked and almost killed. Members of a drug cartel entered their seminary, dragged off one of their colleagues and murdered him in the surrounding countryside. And the grave to one of their instructors is nestled by the chapel. All reminders, if any were needed, that these young men are about to join the world’s most dangerous priesthood. How are they prepared? Do they appreciate just what they are letting themselves in for? And how will they tackle the thorny ethical and spiritual questions which lie ahead as priests?
Affordable housing is in widespread crisis. Many cities around the world have failed to build enough houses with good design and make living in them affordable – whether rented or bought. This effects millions, especially young people. One place which seems to have a far better record is Vienna. Rents are modest, the housing is high quality, there’s a good social mix with new estates designed with everyone in mind. So how has the City achieved this? And with pressures like a growing right to buy ethos, how sustainable all this in the face of future challenges? While the great Social Democratic tradition that Vienna’s housing embodies seems to have faded or disappeared across much of Europe, here it seems to have thrived. Is Vienna’s housing dream a one-off, or can it be a place everywhere else can learn from?
Reporter: Chris Bowlby
Producer: Jim Frank
Shipping has long been one of the most opaque of global industries. Now many operations in the oil sector, which accounts for nearly a third of all seaborne trade, have become still more secretive, following the West's imposition of sanctions on Russian oil. A new "dark fleet" of ageing tankers with obscure ownership, flying flags of convenience, has been formed to avoid the sanctions - and there has been a big increase in risky ship-to-ship transfers at sea, which make it easier to disguise the oil's origin.
The Laconian Gulf in southern Greece is a major hub for such transfers, and locals now fear any accident could cause major environmental damage in an area which depends on tourism and fishing. Tim Whewell witnesses the operations close-up - and talks to campaigners who believe the influence of powerful shipowners makes local authorities turn a blind eye to possible dangers. Who is responsible for policing the operations of ships in international waters? And where is the oil going? The war in Ukraine has led to a major reshuffling of trade flows, as Asia becomes an ever more more bigger market for Russian crude.
Presenter: Tim Whewell
Producer: Monica Whitlock
(Photo: The vessel Merope anchored in the bay of Ceuta after having carried out oil transfer operations in international waters off the coast of Ceuta, 14 March, 2023. Credit: Antonio Sempere/Europa Press/Getty Images)
The poet Nikita Gill has written several volumes of poetry, and enjoys engaging poetically with her audience using social media. Her work often explores Greek myths, and her latest project is a series of four books, each one focusing on a single goddess. For this episode of In the Studio, we join her as she starts with Hekate, often called the goddess of witchcraft, and about whom little is known, other than that she was brought up in the underworld by Styx.
Nikita describes Hekate as a dark anti-feminine goddess and a protest against what is expected of women, which is what appealed to her. But how do you go about creating a life for someone who is so mysterious? And as Nikita will also be illustrating her work, how will she decide how to visually portray her?
Follow Nikita across several months as she works towards completing her first draft of this exciting new work.
Presented and produced by Rebecca Armstrong for the BBC World Service
It’s illegal in around 30 countries in Africa to be in a same-sex relationship and recently there’s been political debate in places such as Uganda and Ghana around stricter laws. We’ve also reported on the BBC in the past few months about violence against LGBT people in Kenya and Egypt, for example. The proposed new law in Uganda is awaiting the president’s assent, and if approved, it may see people who identify as gay, lesbian or queer imprisoned for life. We’ve spent the past few weeks making contact with some of those who are affected.
Gwen was brought up as a strict evangelical Christian. She was taught that women needed to control the way they dressed and acted to control the behaviour of men. When she was sexually abused, she believed it was her fault. But when she first stepped into a nudist community, she felt free. She was naked, with other naked people, and her nakedness was not making other people molest her. She learnt that her body was not something she had to hide. The BBC’s Josie Le Vay visits Gwen at her home in a nudist community in Florida, USA.
How has Finland survived so long as an independent European country, up close to Russia, its aggressive neighbour? Over the decades it’s learnt to live with both the Soviet Union and then post-communist Russia next door and to benefit from the cross-border trade it offered. But Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has changed attitudes in Finland, seen most clearly in its decision to join Nato.
In this edition of Assignment, we report from the border towns of Lappeenranta and Imatra – which have gained economically from Russians crossing into Finland as tourists, for trade, to buy property and simply to go shopping. Now Russian tourist visas have been banned by the Finnish Government and the local mayor says the region is losing a million euros every day.
The country’s army has male conscription, defence spending is at NATO levels and Finland’s cities have underground shelters to protect its population.
Caroline Bayley looks at Finland’s relationship with Russia – past and present – and asks what’s next for these uneasy neighbours.
Producer/presenter Caroline Bayley
Editor Penny Murphy
Studio Engineer Rod Farquhar
Production co-ordinator Helena Warwick-Cross
(Photo: Almost deserted border post on Finland’s border with Russia. Credit: Caroline Bayley)
Bulk carriers are the ships that keep the modern world going - like the MV Raeda and the MV Olivian Confidence carrying grain from Ukraine to Turkey, and flour to Afghanistan and Yemen. Zig zagging across the oceans for months at a time, bulk carriers keep us all going even in times of war and pandemic. ‘If it didn’t grow in your garden,’ says broker Aysu Gurgan, ‘A bulk carrier brought it to you.’ Steel, sand, coal, cement - the very fabric of the modern world - all of it reaches us on bulkers. Unseen by the very populations that rely on them, each bulker is also a home to international crews who spend half their lives on board.
In March 2003, the United States led an invasion of Iraq that would topple Saddam Hussein's regime, but would have far-reaching consequences for the next two decades. No-one knows exactly how many Iraqis have died as a result of the war. Estimates are all in the hundreds of thousands. The political instability that followed saw the rise of jihadist extremists including Islamic State. There was a civil war and the spread of violent sectarianism across the region. Host James Reynolds brings together Iraqis to share how trauma continues to impact their lives.
All episodes of our catfishing podcast are now available. You meet someone online. It turns out many others think they have fallen for the same person. It’s the story of the scammers and the unwitting face of a digital con. With host, Hannah Ajala.
Search for Love, Janessa wherever you get your podcasts.
Fentanyl, a synthetic opioid, is destroying lives all over the United States. Manufactured illegally and at a huge profit by drug cartels in Mexico, it’s smuggled across the border into southern California and Arizona. The director at one entry point on the border acknowledges that they’re looking for needles in a haystack. And she says that they drug organisations have more money than they do.
In the second of a two-part series, Assignment crosses into the US from Mexico to run a rule over the devastation this lethal drug has left in its wake in San Diego County.
Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly
Producer: Tim Mansel
(Photo: The wall between the US and Mexico from the Mexican side. The city of San Diego is in the distance. Credit: Tim Mansel).
BBC journalist Ramadan Younes investigates the world of genetic eye disease ‘treatments’, where some practitioners claim to cure the incurable. Living with his own visual impairment, Ramadan sets out to explore how clinics around the world, from Sudan to Gaza and from Russia to the United States, target predominantly Arab patients by advertising, selling and conducting procedures that are at best ineffective and can at worst cause total blindness.
The storming of the Brazilian Parliament and Congress by the supporters of the former president Jair Bolsonaro came almost two years to the day that Donald Trump’s supporters did the same in the United States. And the two events shared another similarity; both sets of supporters were egged-on by social media posts, and mobilised by private messages on apps like WhatsApp and Telegram. They are examples of how technology is being used to erode democracy – but can it also be used to strengthen it?
In the aftermath of the disastrous war in Iraq, the lesson seemed clear: the West should never intervene in foreign conflicts. But then came the Syrian civil war, and the invasion of Ukraine, and the withdrawal from Afghanistan. So 20 years on, Caroline Wyatt – who has reported from Iraq, Afghanistan and Russia – takes us back to the choice of horrors the West faced in 2003, and examines how the legacy of that fateful decision shapes foreign policy today, for good or ill.
Everything Everywhere All at Once ensured it was a historic night at the Oscars. And in doing so it put a spotlight on Asian Americans. The film, which centres around a fictional family of Asian Americans, received seven awards with Malaysian actress Michelle Yeoh becoming the first Asian woman to win the best actress Oscar. Catherine Byaruhanga hears stories from Asian-Americans, including three actors who discuss attitudes and prejudice towards them in the film industry.
Fentanyl is deadly. Thousands of Americans die every year from a drug overdose – the majority of them after using a synthetic opioid like fentanyl.
Fentanyl was developed as a legal, and effective, pain killer. Now, fuelled by insatiable US demand, it’s illicitly produced in makeshift laboratories in Mexico by organised crime groups.
In the first of a two-part series, Assignment travels to the Mexican Pacific port of Manzanillo. This is one of the main entry points for the chemical ingredients required to make fentanyl. It’s a town where Mexico’s powerful cartels have fought for control, and where the mayor lives under armed guard after a failed assassination attempt.
Although the primary destination of Mexican-made fentanyl is the US, Mexico too has a rising number of addicts – especially in Tijuana on the Mexico / US border.
Presenter / producer: Linda Pressly
Producer: Tim Mansel
Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla
[Photo: The Navy is in charge of security at Mexico’s seaports in a bid to stop the chemicals used to make fentanyl coming in from Asia. Credit: Tim Mansel]
The recent rise in migrant boat crossings between France and the UK is being fuelled, in part, by more sophisticated methods gangs are using to source the boats. The criminal gangs now control the production of inflatables, making it possible to significantly increase profits. Sue Mitchell teams up with former British soldier and aid worker, Rob Lawrie, to investigate how boats used in migrant Chanel crossings are sourced and the huge profits being made.
Since 2020, when the so-called Nth Room scandal revealed how women and children were lured and blackmailed to make explicit videos for distribution through chatrooms, the lucrative online sexual exploitation of women and children has intensified. Sojeong Lee investigates why women in South Korea are so especially vulnerable to online abuse and exploitation and why so little has been achieved by government and police. How have the country’s economic and social characteristics led to this hotbed of digital sex crime?
It is a month since earthquakes hit Turkey and Syria. Official figures suggest that more than 45,000 people were killed in Turkey; and more than 6,000 in Syria. In reality, the numbers are likely to be higher. Millions are without homes - and the search for proper shelter is difficult. Amid rain, snow and cold weather, many people have remained outdoors, too afraid to go into any buildings that are still standing. Host Catherine Byaruhanga brings together survivors and volunteers to share their stories and to hear what happens immediately after such a life changing event.
Ireland’s housing estates continue to ring to the sound of horses with patches of grass used for grazing and garages as stables. Horses used to be an integral part of cities across Europe until the middle of the 20th century. But in Ireland, no matter how hard the authorities have tried to dissuade residents from keeping horses, the tradition survives.
Although horses have long been associated with the travelling community, Irish people from all backgrounds have a passion for owning them. For those on lower incomes, that’s often in housing estates and even in city centres. Some horses can be bought for the price of a packet of cigarettes and although there are supposedly strict ownership rules, these are routinely flouted. The authorities are caught between trying to protect animal welfare and respecting a key part of Irish culture.
For Assignment, Katie Flannery travels to Limerick and Dublin to hear about urban horses there.
Produced by Bob Howard.
(Photo by Bob Howard)
Three years after the official declaration of a pandemic, 65 million people - one in 10 who had Covid-19 - still have symptoms. Some are so ill they are yet to return to work. The Economist’s health editor, Natasha Loder, examines the science behind long Covid and hears about the challenges as researchers try to unravel the cause behind a condition associated with around 200 symptoms.
This year marks 25 years since the Good Friday Agreement, signed by politicians from Northern Ireland and the British and Irish governments in an attempt to bring peace to Northern Ireland. Over his 26 years at the BBC, Denis Murray reported extensively on the peace process, including this pivotal moment. He explains to Claire Graham how it came about, its legacy and how it's still discussed in today's political battles.
In the last few years, powerful criminal gangs have terrorised a swathe of north west and central Nigeria. From camps in the forest, gangs of bandits on motorbikes have attacked villages killing and kidnapping men, women and children. So how can Nigeria's new leader restore security? What does it say about the future of security in Africa's most populous nation? Alex Last has been to the north western city of Katsina to meet some of those battling the bandits.
Photo: Some of the weapons used by vigilantes in Zamfara state, north west Nigeria, 2019 (Photo by Kola Sulaimon / AFP via Getty Images)
Reporter: Alex Last
Producer: Abdullahi Kaura Abubakar
Sound mix: Rod Farquhar
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
Production assistant: Helena Warwick-Cross
The Flying Seagull Project travels the world with a simple goal: to enable and empower children in warzones and refugee camps to play. Theirs is a riproaring, irreverent, iridescent carnival that cuts through even the hoariest of cynics - and changes people's lives. From Glastonbury to a juvenile prison in Poland, and from a refugee camp in Bulgaria to a primary school in South London, reporter Georgia Moodie follows Ash Perrin, the founder of the Flying Seagulls as he gets kids from all walks of life to chuckle, yell and play.
March 2023 marks the 50th anniversary of the departure of the last American combat troops from Vietnam. Vietnamese journalist Nga Pham uncovers the surprising story of the US veterans who served in Vietnam during the 1960s and early '70s, and have since returned as retirees and decided to make the country their home. Can it just be the cheap housing, affordable healthcare and low cost of living? Or is it a way of healing from the psychological trauma of their experiences serving in the US military during the war in Vietnam?
The Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 has led to tens of thousands of deaths. And it’s estimated around 8 million Ukrainians left the country to find sanctuary. James Reynolds meets mothers and their daughters who share their experiences of escaping the war and the challenges of making a new life for themselves in the UK. We also hear from three young Ukrainian women, currently living in London. They express the guilt they feel about leaving friends and family behind, while also offering observations on some quirks of British culture.
Relations between Eritrea and Ethiopia have historically been difficult. Eritrea won independence from Ethiopia in 1993 after a 30-year war. A bitter border war between the two countries began a few years later. But by 2020, Eritrea sent troops to fight alongside the Ethiopian government against rebel forces in its northern Tigray region. Kalkidan Yibeltal is a BBC correspondent in Addis Ababa. He explains the complex history between the two countries, and looks at the tentative peace now emerging in Tigray.
A year on from the invasion of Ukraine, many Russians now inhabit a parallel world that justifies the conflict. How have they been persuaded to support, or accept, a war against a country they had the closest of personal and historical ties with? Assignment talks to some of the persuaders – a celebrated war correspondent, a top talkshow host, a popular singer and poet, and a volunteer fighter – to understand how Russians’ understanding of the conflict has been forged. What are the memories and fears that have been invoked to convince many that it’s Russia, not Ukraine, that’s fighting for its survival?
(Photo of Russian war reporter Alexander Kots)
Ahead of the upcoming general election in Nigeria, Alan Kasujja hosts a special conversation from the commercial capital of Lagos. He sat down with around 20 young people to debate and talk about their lives in what many refer to as the “giant of Africa”. Writers, security guards, teachers, web designers and entrepreneurs are among those who join Alan to talk about issues including education, money, safety, corruption and the lack of women in the political landscape.
A military coup in 1989 brought Omar al-Bashir to power, until being overthrown by the military in the face of mass protests in 2019. During this time, war has raged in Darfur, South Sudan has gained independence and the Sudanese people demanded a return to civil government. BBC journalist Mohanad Hashim grew up in Khartoum and has reported extensively on the Middle East and Africa. He speaks to Claire Graham about Sudan’s journey from independence to revolution.
No part of the United Kingdom has felt the impact of Brexit more strongly than Northern Ireland. Home to the country's only land border with the European Union, the province is the focus of passionate debate about Britain's future relationship with Europe. Three years on from Brexit, the temporary agreement, the so called “Protocol,” that was designed to ease the UK's exit from the EU but left Northern Ireland in legal and political limbo is coming to an end. And what might replace it is causing uncertainty and unease there. David Baker travels to Northern Ireland and assesses the impact of Brexit. He meets businesses that have benefited from the agreement and want it to stay and others who say it’s been damaging and feel their identities are threatened.
Producer: Jim Frank
(Photo by Stephen Barnes via Getty Images)
The Freedman’s Bank was established in 1865 after the abolition of slavery and the Civil War. The Bank was designed to help newly freed African-Americans in their quest to become financially stable. At its peak, it stretched across huge swathes of America. But what began with huge promise ended in massive failure nine years later, leaving a legacy of distrust in its wake. Szu Ping Chan looks at the history and lessons from the collapse of America's first black bank.
For World Radio Day, we celebrate four vibrant community radio stations on four continents. Northern Malawi’s Rumphi FM supports the Tumbuka tribe while giving young women a space to speak out against early marriage and for education. From Budapest, Radio Dikh broadcasts “about the Roma, but not just for the Roma,” presenting Romany culture in its own distinctive voice. In Nunavik, Northern Quebec, Inuit radio beams Inuktitut music and talk to 14 remote villages, helping to keep an ancient language and threatened tradition alive. And in Myanmar, brave journalists risk their lives to resist the military dictatorship with news and views sent out from portable transmitters, sometimes under fire.
We have been hearing from people in Turkey and Syria since the earthquake struck the region on Monday. Three survivors tell us about their escape from shaking buildings onto bitterly cold streets, including Canan who was staying in a hotel in Gazientep: “We were in PJs,” she says. “We were barefoot and people were screaming and crying.” It’s an anxious and emotional time for relatives watching from abroad. Germany is home to the largest Turkish diaspora in the world and we bring together Aeyna and Hazal, as well as Khalil, who has close family in Aleppo in Syria.
In Germany in 2002 there were some 19,000 small, neighbourhood butchers’ shops. They made and sold, among other things, that “great emblem of Germany’s national diet” – sausages. At last count, in 2021, there were fewer than 11,000 shops left. The German butchers’ trade association says there are “massive problems” finding trained staff and young people who want to learn from the bottom up. In Lörrach, in the south-west of Germany, the Chamber of Handcraft, is now looking overseas in order to preserve local culinary traditions. A group of apprentices from India has just started a three-year training programme at the local college and various shops in the vicinity. The decline of the butchers’ shop – and the threat to the sausage – mirrors a problem in many branches across the whole of Germany; in social care, in bakeries, in the building trade: people at the top of an ageing population are leaving the workforce at a higher rate than those entering at the bottom. “The lack of skilled workers is becoming ever more palpable,” says the chamber of trade. They’ll be going back to India later this year to recruit for other industries.
Producer/presenter: Tim Mansel
When speech disorders affect children, it is speech therapists who assist in helping them find their voice, but therapists are rare and it is thought they are largely absent across 75% of the world. Sean Allsop grew up needing speech therapy in the UK. He travels to Turks & Caicos, a place that has no therapists to help its population. He takes the trip with a travelling speech therapist, Mary Weinder who has been asked by the Turks & Caicos Government for help.
Around the world, millions of people live with daily electricity blackouts. In recent days in South Africa, protesters – angry that the electricity keeps going off – marched through Johannesburg and Cape Town. Three women in South Africa share their experiences of their daily struggles to get everything done before the power goes off. Two business owners, in Sri Lanka and Nigeria, come together to discuss the financial impact of power cuts.
Cattle are part of Uruguay’s DNA. There are around 4 cows to every one of their tiny 3.5 million population of people and beef is their main export. But how do they compete against their mighty, better known neighbours; Argentina and Brazil? In this week’s Assignment Jane Chambers travels to the country’s lush, green pastures to find out about how they keep their cash cow flourishing. She hears from cattle farmers and other people in the beef industry about how they’re carving out a niche for themselves and future proofing against the threats of climate change. Produced and presented by: Jane Chambers Country Producer: Lucinda Elliot Studio Mix: Rod Farquhar Production coordinator: Iona Hammond and Gemma Ashman Series Editor: Penny Murphy
Orna Merchant learns how, during World War Two, a desperate Soviet Union created three all-female aerial combat units. The most celebrated of these was the 588th Night Bomber Regiment. Using Polikarpov Po-2 wooden biplanes, as the aviators approached their target they would cut their engines and glide in to drop their bombs. The eerie sight and sound of this – added to the discovery of them having all women crews - led German forces to nickname them ‘Nachthexen’ - the Night Witches.
How do humans cope with sadness? Is it something to be avoided at all costs or part of the human condition? Should we dwell on our sadness, or flee from it? Author Helen Russell explores humanity's history of gloom, and the cultural differences in our approach to tackling it. Helen goes to Lisbon to explore their relationship with melancholy, communicated through a uniquely mournful genre of music called Fado, and an untranslatable word "saudade". She learns about the service which sends a handsome man to wipe away tears in Japan, and hears about joy, sadness and mourning with a Ghanian poet.
Several countries are experiencing a fall in the number of babies being born and this has potentially serious consequences. Japan’s Prime Minister, Fumio Kishida, has warned that his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society. The problem is an increasingly elderly population and not enough younger people to keep the country ticking over. China is seeing record low birth rates and South Korea has the lowest rate of women having babies in the world. Youtubers Sarah and Kyuho in the South Korean capital Seoul, describe some of the pressures and reactions they experienced when they said they are not planning to have kids.
Cuba and the United States share a long, complex history. From the Spanish-American War of 1898 to Fidel Castro's Cuba, these neighbours have often had an uneasy relationship. Claire Graham speaks with Ana Maria Roura, a BBC World Service journalist and Cuban native, to understand the history between the two nations.
Why did people take to the streets, risking arrest and a barrage of bullets?
After protests turned violent and hundreds of people were killed, four Iranians tell the story of why they risked their lives. What has been happening in Iran to drive them out onto the streets to face bullets?
‘Agrin’ tells Phoebe Keane she’s tired of being objectified as a woman, and having no faith that the authorities will take sexual assault seriously when the police themselves are accused of raping prisoners.
Mahsoud tells how he was shot during a protest but feared going to the hospital in case the authorities put him in jail. When plain clothed police loitered outside his family home, he decided to leave Iran. Still bleeding and with a metal pellet lodged in his ear impairing his hearing, he finally made it across the border to Iraq.
‘Nazy’ tells of being arrested by the morality police while walking to work and being shoved in a van as the heels on her shoes were too high. She started to protest every day and now walks through the streets with her hair blowing in the wind, an act of defiance.
‘Farah’ remembers a time in Iran when women could dance and sing in public and protests because she wants her daughter to live a life without fear.
Presenter: Phoebe Keane
Producers: Ed Butler, Ali Hamedani, Khosro Isfahani and Taraneh Stone
Series editor: Penny Murphy
In 2002 photojournalist Caroline Irby and former BBC reporter Tom McKinley arrived in Sierra Leone to cover the fallout from the country’s brutal conflict. They travelled with children caught up in the fighting; as they were reunited with their families. Now, just over two decades on, Caroline returns to West Africa to track them down.
As the Nazi invasion of the Soviet Union swept over vast areas of Ukraine and Belorussia from the summer of 1941, over three million Jews were deliberately targeted for annihilation. Shot, hung, butchered, a million and a half Jewish souls were buried in vast pits in Babi Yar, Rumbula, Mariupol, Minsk, Kyiv and Riga. Many accounts began to flood into the Soviet Union where journalist and writer Ilya Ehrenburg began gathering testimonies of the mass murder. This became The Black Book, a chronicle of the Nazi extermination of Soviet Jews. Historian Catherine Merridale travels to Riga, Latvia and Yad Vashem, where the Black Book was smuggled, to uncover this complex story of loss, silence and rediscovery.
During World War Two, approximately 1.6 million Soviet, Polish and Romanian Jews survived by escaping to Soviet Central Asia and Siberia, avoiding imminent death in ghettos, firing squads and killing centres. Many of them wrote music about these horrors as the Holocaust unfolded. Singer Alice Zawadzski, whose own family found themselves on a similar journey to Central Asia, and historian Anna Shternshis of the University of Toronto, who led the project to bring these songs back to life, travel to Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan to retrace the journeys of those Jewish refugees who became music composers.
Since the Taliban returned to power some 18 months ago, women in Afghanistan have been removed from nearly all areas of public life. They are barred from secondary schools, universities and most workplaces and cannot even socialise in public parks. As Afghanistan faces a growing humanitarian crisis, we bring together three students in the country to share their experiences of life under Taliban rule. We catch up with three young women who used to compete in Afghanistan. Footballer, Najma, tells us that in the country many girls wish they had been born boys. We speak to two politicians who had fled the country when the Taliban returned to power.
Fifty years ago, Jane Roe become the centre of a ruling that would fuel US politics for the following decades. The Roe v Wade case gave women the constitutional right to abortion, until 2022 when it was overturned by the US Supreme Court. Claire Graham speaks with Katty Kay about the 1973 legal case, the legacy of that ruling and how abortion became such a central issue in contemporary American politics.
In 2018 the town of Paradise in hills of northern California was wiped out by one of the worst wildfires in California's history. The disaster made headlines around the world - regarded as a symbol of the dangers posed by climate change. So what does the future hold for communities like Paradise in a region increasingly threatened by wildfire? Four years on, Alex Last traveled to Paradise to meet the survivors who are rebuilding their town.
Photo: A home burns as the Camp fire tears through Paradise, California on November 8, 2018. (Josh Edelson /AFP via Getty Images)
Reporter and producer: Alex Last
Sound mix: Rod Farquar
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
Production coordinator: Iona Hammond
There’s growing scientific evidence that many animals are not only conscious but they possess a more profound sense of self. They can learn by experience and make decisions that depend on a sense of the future - in other words they are “sentient” beings with the capacity to feel pain, pleasure and emotions. In the second part of this two-part series, Sue Armstrong reports on the latest scientific research into the minds and consciousness of animals and the ethical implications this has on animal welfare and our relationship with animals.
What does it mean to be a citizen? Is it about belonging, or about convenience? Katy Long examines two trends which offer stark alternatives: countries which remove citizenship (or want to), and those which sell it. Sharing stories from Belarus, the Dominican Republic, Malta and Kuwait reveals how very differently different countries think about these questions, about identity, and about the powerful forces shaping our world and our lives, forces over which few of us have any power.
When it came to tackling Covid, China has been among the strictest on the planet. There have been almost three years of travel restrictions, testing and lockdowns. Host James Reynolds also chats with Yanni, Lex and David, who discuss what it has been like to live under China’s ‘zero Covid’ policy and how they have all recently had the disease, following a nationwide surge in cases. We also get a perspective on what’s been happening in China from two foreigners living in the county: Jonathan, a Canadian, and Lee, a South African, who tells us that she has felt unable to leave Beijing for the past three years.
There is growing scientific evidence that many animals are not only conscious, but possess a more profound sense of self. They can learn by experience and make decisions that depend on a sense of the future - in other words, they are “sentient” beings with the capacity to feel pain, pleasure and emotions. Sue Armstrong reports on the latest scientific research into the minds and consciousness of animals of all sorts, from chimpanzees to birds, bees and cuttlefish.
Edson Arantes do Nascimento, or ‘Pele’ as he became known, is thought by most to have been the greatest footballer to grace this planet. He died on 29th December, aged 82.
James Reynolds has been in Santos, Pele’s adopted hometown. He was among the crowds on the streets at the funeral procession, as they celebrated this sporting legend’s life.
Oritsé Williams became a young carer aged 12, when his mother contracted multiple sclerosis and he had to take responsibility for looking after her and two younger siblings. During his teenage years, he had a dream: to become a singer and make plenty of money so that he could fund research to find a cure for his mum. At least part of that dream came true when Oritsé and his band, JLS, were runners-up in a national talent contest.
But Oritsé never forgot his early years as a young, unpaid carer. He meets the next generation of kids who care – in the UK, Uganda and El Salvador. He learns about the challenges these children and teenagers face, but also hears stories of resilience and hope. Among the children are 13-year-old Amber, who looks after two sick and disabled parents; 15-year-old Jordan, whose care role ties him to the house almost completely; and 13-year-old Gloria from Uganda, who looks after four younger siblings all on her own.
Patti Paniccia was a surfer back in the 1970s, determined to create a path to professional surfing for women, as well as men. Together with surf promoter, Fred Hemmings and surfer Randy Rarick, she founded IPS (International Professional Surfing), to create the very first men’s and women’s world tour in 1976. The women’s surf team – Sally Prange, Jericho Poppler, Rell Sunn, Becky Benson, Claudia Kravitz and Patti herself – were met with a barrage of ridicule and blatant sexism, but also had the time of their lives - from surfing the shark infested waters in South Africa, to drawing crowds of 20,000 Brazilians to the beaches in Rio de Janeiro. Together they opened the door for women's competitive professional surfing.
Three people caring for loved ones with Alzheimers share their experiences and challenges.
Sana Safi returns to the story of two Afghan women judges who have had to go into hiding after the Taliban takeover - and are now preparing to be evacuated for a second time. Through encrypted networks and messages, Sana gets unprecedented access to the secretive operatives trying to get the women and their families out of the country. It is a race against time as they now journey to the point of no return.
As in many countries, obesity in Brazil is a major issue with one in four Brazilians now classified as obese and more than half the population overweight. But rather than focusing just on trying to lower this rate by promoting exercise and healthier ways of eating, campaigners and some city councils are successfully implementing changes, which accept that high rates of obesity are probably here to stay and society should adapt to this. These changes include schools buying bigger chairs and desks, hospitals buying bigger beds and MRI machines and theatres offering wider seats. Brazilian lawyers are starting to make legal challenges, particularly against discrimination in the workplace. Women are holding plus sized beauty contests to celebrate their larger bodies. Schools are hosting discussion clubs where they talk about how body shapes are perceived by their peers and wider society. Even so, campaigners say there is a long way to go for bigger bodies to be culturally accepted in Brazil and overcoming what is known as “gordofobia” – belittling or discriminating against people who are larger than average. Camilla Mota travels to the south-eastern coastal city of Vitoria to meet a plus size influencer and a lawyer campaigning to stop discrimination and trying to make the city more tolerant. She then flies 1500km north to another port city, Recife, where some changes have now taken place. Is this transformation away from the stereo-typical “body beautiful” only skin deep or the shape of things to come across the western world?
Presenter: Camilla Mota
Producer: Bob Howard
Ukrainians at home and abroad reflect on the turmoil of the past year as they prepare to mark Christmas.
To many, the passionate music and dance known as flamenco is an important marker of Spanish identity, and perhaps even synonymous with it. So much so, that Unesco has recognised the art form as part of the world’s Intangible Cultural Heritage. Yet its place within the country of its birth is both more complicated – and more precarious - than this might suggest.
During the Covid lockdowns, a third of all flamenco venues closed down, and with many yet to reopen, training opportunities for new artists remain in short supply. The pandemic has also exacerbated the struggle of many singers and dancers to make ends meet. Meanwhile, to the outrage of purists, other practitioners see a future in fusing traditional flamenco with new, more commercially viable genres, such as pop and hip-hop. Still others see flamenco as a stereotype, and unhelpful to their country’s modern image.
The BBC’s Madrid correspondent Guy Hedgecoe takes us on a colourful journey, reflecting on flamenco’s intriguing origins among the downtrodden folk culture of southern Spain, its difficult present, and its possibly uncertain future.
Presenter: Guy Hedgecoe
Producer: Mike Gallagher
Meet the man who makes presidents wait. J Edgar Hoover built and then ran the FBI for almost five decades. He turned it from a bureaucratic backwater into a premier crime fighting and counterintelligence force. In the process, he arguably became America’s most powerful man. He has been dead for 50 years and still his shadow looms over the US. His job was to enforce the law but he would not always be bound by it.
For 90 years the BBC World Service has been broadcasting in dozens of languages to audiences so huge they are counted in the tens of millions all over the globe. World Service began transmitting on 19 December 1932. It was called the BBC Empire Service, speaking in slow English via crackly short-wave radio to a now-vanished Empire which then ruled a fifth of the globe.
The Second World War saw radio services expand massively, broadcasting in more than 40 languages to listeners hungry for truth and facts they could trust. In every crisis and conflict since, individual voices out of the air have offered news, but also drama, music, education and sometimes hope to their audiences.
In a special 90th anniversary programme, the broadcaster Nick Rankin, who worked for more than 20 years at the BBC, digs into a treasure trove of sound archive and talks to journalists who made and still make the BBC World Service such a remarkable network.
The global economy is shrinking but our costs are rising, and as people around the world find things harder, many are deciding to go on strike for better pay and conditions. Around the world, we are seeing the likes of teachers, nurses, postal and transport workers taking industrial action. We bring together some of those workers to hear about their jobs and why they are taking to the picket lines.
Paks, a small Hungarian town on the bank of the River Danube has prospered from its nuclear power station, built by the Soviet Union in the mid-1980s. Hungary has prospered too. Paks provides some 40 per cent of the country’s power requirements. But the four reactors are now approaching the end of their lives and are slated for retirement in 2032; so, in 2014 agreement was reached with Russia to build two more, with the help of a Russian loan worth several billion Euros, Russian engineers, and a small army of Ukrainian welders. But the invasion of Ukraine by the Russian army in February 2022 has thrown these plans into disarray. Construction has begun, in the sense that bulldozers have been clearing the ground. But the project is already delayed, and there are those who believe that the new reactors will never be built. As Nick Thorpe discovers, people who thought they had a job for life in Paks are worried about their future and the future of a town whose lively shops and restaurants owe everything to the nuclear industry. Now the centre-piece of prime minister Viktor Orban’s energy empire, Paks may soon become the country’s rustbelt.
Journalist Makiko Segawa who had a terrifying experience when she was sent to a psychiatric hospital when she was a young woman meets other people who have been caught up in the country's controversial mental health system. She hears harrowing stories before challenging the authorities about what's being done to change methods and Japanese attitudes towards mental health.
Journalist Makiko Segawa who had a terrifying experience when she was sent to a psychiatric hospital when she was a young woman meets other people who have been caught up in the country's controversial mental health system. She hears harrowing stories before challenging the authorities about what's being done to change methods and Japanese attitudes towards mental health.
A long-held human ambition may soon become reality - human settlements on another planet, or in a floating space station. People could fulfil their hopes and dreams among the stars. David Baker has been discovering what those settlements in space will be like, who will be there and how they will be organised. He has been hearing from the people shaping human life out in the universe, about their extraordinary plans and ambitions.
Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere and, in the last 15 years, the Caribbean nation has had outbreaks of cholera, a devastating earthquake and continual political upheaval. Last year, its president was assassinated - a crime for which no one has yet been put on trial, and since then violence in Haiti has escalated. According to human rights groups, armed gangs now control at least 60% of the capital, Port au Prince. In October, the UN reported 200 killings and 100 kidnappings. Host James Reynolds hears from Haitians who are dealing with the threats and dangers affecting them.
Haiti is the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere and, in the last 15 years, the Caribbean nation has had outbreaks of cholera, a devastating earthquake and continual political upheaval. Last year, its president was assassinated - a crime for which no one has yet been put on trial, and since then violence in Haiti has escalated. According to human rights groups, armed gangs now control at least 60% of the capital, Port au Prince. In October, the UN reported 200 killings and 100 kidnappings. Host James Reynolds hears from Haitians who are dealing with the threats and dangers affecting them.
In California, cannabis is legal for recreational use and it’s created a multi-billion dollar industry. But who’s been reaping the rewards? For decades people from Black and Latino communities have been disproportionately arrested and imprisoned on cannabis drugs charges – and yet few appeared to benefit from the legal cannabis boom. So to make amends, California has been pioneering a policy to give those targeted in the war on drugs, a chance to share in the new cannabis industry. But is it working? Sharon Hemans has been to the city of Oakland to find out. Photo: Local entrepreneur Julian Nelson at this cannabis delivery store in Oakland.
Presenter: Sharon Hemans
Producer: Alex Last
Sound mix by Neil Churchill
Series editor: Penny Murphy
Production Coordinator: Iona Hammond
The railways are incredibly important to life in India and have connected the country since the first line opened in 1863. But now, nearly 160 years later, the Indian rail network is about to take the next step in its existence - going electric. In 2017, national rail body Indian Railways announced that 100% of India's rail network would be electrified by the end of 2023 and then achieve net zero carbon emissions by 2030. With just over a year to go, Bhakti Jain finds out if India can meet its ambitious targets.
Apart from football, the men’s World Cup in Qatar has also led to analysis and discussion around the country’s human rights, including its treatment towards LGBT people. Qatar is far from the only country where someone’s sexuality is considered an issue, so we decided to bring together members of the LGBT community from various countries - including Turkey, Russia, Jordan and the UK - to hear their experiences.
Sasha Koltun volunteered to fight in Putin's war against Ukraine, though his mother Yelena begged him not to go. Four days later, he was dead, one of several dozen new recruits from across Russia who never even reached the battlefield. What happened to him - and will his mother, battling official indifference and obstruction, ever discover the truth? With the Kremlin currently restricting access to Russia for Western reporters, Tim Whewell picks up the phone to talk to her and other people in and around the city of Bratsk, in central Siberia, about how the war has affected them. Many are afraid to talk. But others describe their anxiety as they wave goodbye to their menfolk, their confused feelings about the war - a mixture of patriotism and doubt - and the chaotic organisation of the call up. Some recruits have had to buy their own uniform and equipment. Others have suffered as discipline breaks down at some training camps. Tim talks to a former policewoman determined to encourage support for the war, who makes stretchers for wounded Russian soldiers - and to a young woman who believes it was her boyfriend's duty to be a soldier. But Yelena Koltun - who lost her son Sasha - cannot understand what her country is fighting for.
Presented and produced by Tim Whewell
The past few years have been the most politically turbulent for the State of Oklahoma and its Native American, or Indian, population in over a century. A Supreme Court ruling, McGirt v Oklahoma, in July 2020, reaffirmed treaties that have been in place since the early 19th Century. These treaties decreed much of eastern Oklahoma as reservation land, still belonging to the Native American communities who were forcibly moved there in the 19th Century. However an inevitable legal backlash followed the McGirt decision.
Why would anyone want to pay more tax? Film-maker, activist and multi-millionaire Disney heiress Abigail Disney presents a very personal introduction to the millionaires campaigning against their own wealth. From Morehead, Kentucky to Davos, Switzerland, Washington DC to Orlando, Florida, Abigail tells the story of contemporary wealth inequality, focusing particularly on the United States. What harm is wealth inequality doing to society and democracy and what can be done about it?
Millions of people in Ukraine are having to live with cuts to their electricity, water and heating, as official reports estimate that Russian missile attacks have damaged or destroyed almost half of the country’s energy system. Temperatures are already hovering around freezing in much of the country, and forecasts predict a drop to -20C as winter sets in. As engineers try to restore power, one of the country's biggest energy companies has warned Ukraine could be dealing with blackouts until the end of March. We hear from Ukrainians about the impact of these power cuts on their lives and work.
China’s President Xi Jinping says that Taiwan‘s reunification with the mainland “must and will be fulfilled.” The view from democratic Taiwan is somewhat different. It’s a threat the islanders have been hearing ever since the 1949 Chinese Civil War, when the Government of the Republic of China was forced to relocate to Taiwan allowing the Chinese Communist Party to establish a new Chinese state: the People’s Republic of China. But some sense that the increased rhetoric from China in recent months poses a real and present danger. Taiwanese billionaire Robert Tsao has pledged millions of pounds to train three million ‘civilian warriors’ in three years to defend the island should it be required. But will it come to that? John Murphy is in Taiwan to talk to people there about what they think about the threat from China and whether they’d be prepared to fight to protect what they have. Presenter: John Murphy Producer: Ben Carter Local producer and translator: Joanne Kuo Production Coordinator: Iona Hammond Sound Engineer: James Beard Series Editor: Penny Murphy
In the past couple of years, Fifa eased its rules on allowing players with mixed heritage the opportunity to represent a country, even if you have previously played on the international stage for a different one. But what goes into the tough decision of deciding who to represent? And how persuasive can some countries be? We explore the increasingly common issue of players having to decide who they really represent and why.
When Qatar was announced as the host of the men's World Cup in 2022, it sent shockwaves around the football world. The small, spectacularly wealthy country, with a tiny population, little existing infrastructure, massive concerns over human rights and labour rights, and summer temperatures of over 40 degrees, seemed an unlikely candidate. That they had secured the World Cup triggered immense controversy, and an immediate wave of speculation that this would be yet another Fifa scandal, with votes bought and sold. Alex Capstick, the BBC World Service's sport correspondent, follows this story since that fateful announcement.
The health wagon serves remote communities in the Appalachian mountains of south-west Virginia. It's the oldest mobile clinic in the USA, founded in 1980 by a catholic nun in the back of a VW Beetle. Today it is a thriving and innovative non-profit, with five mobile units and three stationary clinics. Nurse practitioners Dr Teresa Tyson and Dr Paula Hill Collins are at the helm. We join them and their team, providing no-cost medical, dental and vision care to one of the most vulnerable, medically underserved areas of the United States.
It’s 12 years since Qatar was announced as the host country for the men’s World Cup football tournament. Awarding the event to Qatar was a controversial decision at the time and still is, on several levels. The country has strict anti-LGBTQ+ laws, and women's rights are the subject of ongoing debate. More recently, treatment of the 30,000 migrant labourers, who built many of the tournament's stadiums and infrastructure has been severely criticised. James Reynolds has been talking to fans around the globe, including gay rights activists, and hears from women living in Qatar, as the eyes of the world turn to their country.
A group of women are taking on China’s communist government after their husbands and fathers were jailed as dissidents. The women never wanted to be campaigners but felt compelled to help their loved ones. In China, the women endured detention, surveillance, social isolation and persecution. They’ve now fled to the United States, where they juggle jobs, bringing up children – and political campaigning. The BBC’s Asia-Pacific editor, Michael Bristow, hears their stories that reveal the dark side of China’s communist regime. Presenter: Michael Bristow Producer: Alex Last Photo: Shi Minglei now in the United States (BBC)
Musician Rhiannon Giddens explores the home of country music in Nashville to see how black people shaped this genre. How black is Nashville and its music history? Rhiannon uncovers the story of one of the biggest stars of the early country era: the African American ‘Harmonica Wizard’ DeFord Bailey. He was one of the most beloved performers at the Grand Ole Opry and the first black star of the radio age.
It is 2010 and Colombian Colonel Jose Espejo has a problem. Not only is the Farc increasing its kidnapping activity, targeting police and military hostages, but many of the soldiers already in captivity - some kept in barbed-wire cages and held isolation in for over a decade - are losing hope of ever being rescued. Colonel Espejo knew that in order for future missions to succeed, he’d need to warn the captives that help was coming so they could be ready to make a break for it when the army arrived. But how do you get a message across to military hostages without tipping off their captors and placing them in even greater danger? The unexpected solution - hide the message in a pop song with an interlude in morse code that the military hostages could decipher.
With all eyes on Qatar ahead of the World Cup, Salma El-Wardany is on a mission to discover what women in Doha have to say about their lives in this strict patriarchal society. Qatar has a grand, national vision to level up the gender playing field by 2030, but how is that working out for women in reality? , Salma meets young women, mothers, athletes, business owners and academics, to hear from them about their opportunities, careers, and their freedom. Will Salma be surprised by what she finds?
While world leaders meet in Egypt at the COP27 climate conference, we bring people together to share how the world around them is changing. Three people in the Bahamas, US and UK discuss their experiences of extreme weather. Alexander tells us how he had to wear a respirator when he was driving a taxi in Portland, Oregon, because of the smoke from forest fires. Shavone shares her story of a dramatic escape with her children from a storm in the Bahamas and Lance in the UK explains why he still lives in a house that lost its kitchen to the waves. Tendi Sherpa, who has climbed Everest 14 times and Lalaina Ramaroson, a tour guide in Madagascar, discuss how their countries are changing and the impact of climate change on plants and animals.
Acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens explores bluegrass music in Kentucky, the history of the banjo and the story of Arnold Shultz. For many listeners of bluegrass, the story of this music begins in December 1945, when ‘Father of Bluegrass’ Bill Monroe brought his band on stage at the Grand Ole Opry. Yet, Bill Monroe always acknowledged the black fiddler and guitarist Arnold Shultz as one of his major influences. Rhiannon explores how African-American musicians like Shultz were often mentors to white country stars of the time.
For centuries we've made sacrifices, sent prayers to gods and summoned witches, in an attempt to bend the weather to our will. Science suggests now we might actually be able to do it. Weather modifiers are employed to make it rain, suppress hail and enhance snow packs. It is big business, from the UAE to Chile, Thailand to China, interest and investment is global. Kim Chakanetsa asks what the weather changers are actually doing, if it really works and if so, is it problem free?
Americans are preparing to vote in their midterm elections. The rising cost of living, abortion, immigration, crime and gun rights are all issues that may affect decisions at the ballot box. We bring together two women from Massachusetts: Christine, a self-employed dog walker and Sheena, a single mother of four children aged three, five, seven and 13, who are struggling to afford essentials. In several states, the right to abortion will be on the ballot. We hear from two centres running clinics for women. We also get advice on how to ‘disagree well’ from couples where the partners have different political opinions.
Until Roe vs Wade was overturned by the Supreme Court in June, sweeping away Americans’ constitutional right to abortion, no one gave much thought to Safe Haven laws. These allow a mother to give up her new-born baby for adoption, at a designated site, anonymously and without risk of prosecution. Safe Haven legislation first appeared in the US in 1999 in Texas, in response to a rise in the number of abandoned babies. Now it exists in every state. These laws were never intended as an alternative to abortion. But as the options for unhappily pregnant women diminish, some are anticipating an increase in the number of babies left by desperate mothers in hospitals and specially designed Baby Boxes at local fire stations. Ahead of the US midterm elections, and with the abortion debate still polarising the nation, Assignment reports from Arizona on America’s ‘dropbox babies’.
Reporter: Linda Pressly
Producer: Tim Mansel
Acclaimed musician Rhiannon Giddens returns to her home state of North Carolina to explore the lives of two black fiddlers: Joe Thompson and Frank Johnson. Johnson was one of the first black celebrities in the southern states of the US. Born into slavery, he bought freedom for himself and his family on the back of his profits as a musician. More than 2,000 people processed through Wilmington, North Carolina for his funeral in 1871. Though he died before the start of the recording industry, his music was passed down through generations of black fiddlers in the region. The last of these fiddlers was Joe Thompson.
Society drives people, particularly women, in every way to look beautiful. We see it on television, in the movies, and in magazines. The social pressure associated with physical appearance is typically much greater for girls and women than boys and men in almost every society. We tap into different areas of culture and society across the globe to get a diverse range of experience and opinion, and look at what drives this prejudice, and why.
There is a disturbing account of murder, that listeners may find upsetting Behind Amsterdam’s red light district hides a secret world of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. What is viewed by many as little more than an edgy tourist attraction is in fact an area rife with crime. With the advent of mass tourism, the situation has become even more out of hand. Former sex workers and other people who know what really goes on in the world of window prostitution share stories of extreme tourist nuisance, violence against sex workers, and forced prostitution. Will the Dutch capital ever regain control over what once was one of its most beautiful historic neighbourhoods?
Amsterdam's red light district hides a secret world of sexual exploitation and human trafficking. People who know what really goes on share their stories.
Rishi Sunak begins his leadership in a time of crisis. He inherits an economy with inflation at more than 10 percent - its highest rate in 40 years - and rising food prices. During his first address as prime minister, Rishi Sunak warned there was no doubt the UK faced “a profound economic challenge.” James Reynolds speaks to several people struggling to survive. They share their tips for stretching every penny - from batch cooking to freezing bread and defrosting two slices at a time for sandwiches. We also hear from several single mothers who, despite having jobs, are all finding it increasingly difficult to afford everyday necessities.
Svalbard is the fastest warming place on earth. Deep inside the Arctic Circle, it is home to the world’s northernmost settlement, Longyearbyen, which is estimated to be heating at six times the global average. People living here have a front row seat for the climate crisis - melting glaciers, rising sea levels, avalanches and landslides. Add to this an energy crisis in Europe fuelled by the war in Ukraine, which many experts believe is now undermining the fight against climate change. Nick Beake finds out what is being done to try to save Svalbard as we know it.
Producer: Kate Vandy
Misha Glenny finds out whether the European Union can end its dependency on China for rare earths and critical raw materials and he discovers that Russia's interest in Ukraine might be partially motivated but the huge mineral deposits there.
An astonishing series of documents in Sierra Leone named the Registers of Liberated Africans record details of Africans freed from slavery by the British Royal Navy in the 19th Century. There is one entry in the registers that simply says 'Recaptive Number 11,407, without name, deaf and dumb'. In this documentary mixing poetry and new historical research, award-winning deaf poet Raymond Antrobus goes on a personal journey to Sierra Leone to trace a piece of forgotten history and try to find out what became of this deaf man without a name.
Assassination, sabotage, cyberattacks - the undeclared war between Israel and Iran is one of the longest running conflicts in the region. As attempts to create a new deal to limit Iran's nuclear programme fail and Israel makes unprecedented alliances with its Arab neighbours, tensions are rising. Suzanne Kianpour talks to leading players in the region to find out how it all began and where it is heading.
Sports climber Elnaz Rekabi has become the latest symbol of the anti-government protests, begun and led by women in Iran. She competed in the Asian Championships in South Korea with her hair uncovered, breaking Iran’s strict dress code requiring women to cover their hair with a hijab, or headscarf. Although Ms Rekabi later said her hijab had fallen off "inadvertently", the images had already gone viral. We hear from an Iranian female footballer who was in a similar position a few years ago and speak to a chess referee who took off her own headscarf during a tournament in 2020.
Paul Kenyon investigates the ‘brain drain’ of doctors from developing countries to work in the UK. The large scale recruitment of foreign doctors from nations with the greatest need to retain their medical personnel is increasing on a massive scale. What’s more, thousands of doctors are being targeted despite guidance which says recruitment from developing countries should not happen. It is though - because the UK trains too few doctors and nurses and needs these staff to plug the gaps. There are also big concerns about how many of the doctors flown into the UK are expected to work extremely long hours which they say is putting patient safety at risk.
Misha Glenny explores the world of rare earth metals and other critical raw materials. They are vital for the future of technology and the green transition. But some see China's monopoly on production as a major global threat. In the first of two episodes, Misha finds out what the 17 rare earth metals are and hears about their weird and wonderful applications. He also discovers how China has managed to dominate the mining and refining of them.
In Japan the concept of yamato nadeshiko describes the classic ideal of Japanese women: a beautiful but modest female, dedicated to the wellbeing of her family and husband. She is assertive and smart, yet obedient, dependent, and bound to the domestic sphere. But times are changing. In recent years, campaigns such as #MeToo and #KuToo, which saw women petition against wearing high heels to work, have put Japan's gender inequality in the spotlight. Akiko Toya explores the change that is being created in Japan by women forging new partnerships in femtech, politics, sport and media.
Just over a decade ago, President Xi Jinping was a virtual unknown. Few would say that now. In ten years, he’s reworked the Chinese Communist party, the military and the government so that he’s firmly in control. He’s also vanquished all of his obvious rivals. And now, he’s about to extend his time in office. Some say Xi might stay in the top job indefinitely. So how did Xi Jinping do it? Celia Hatton, the BBC’s Asia Pacific editor, speaks to fellow China watchers to find out.
As missile strikes by Russia have intensified across Ukraine, we bring together Russians to hear their thoughts on the war. President Putin last month also called for a boost to troop numbers through a ”partial mobilisation”, meaning the call up of 300,000 army reservists. Host James Reynolds hears how families are being torn apart due to opposing views on what is happening.
The bakers and farmers trying to wean Senegal off imported wheat. Trotting along on a horse and cart, over the bumpy red dirt roads, through the lush green fields of Senegal’s countryside, Oule carries sacks of cargo back to her village. She is the bread lady of Ndor Ndor and she’s selling French baguettes. As a former French colony, the baguette is such a staple of the Senegalese diet, that 8 million loaves are transported out to remote villages, roadside kiosks and high end city bakeries every morning. But wheat doesn’t grow in the West African country, so they are at the mercy of the global markets. Usually they import the majority of their wheat from Russia and Ukraine, but since the war, there have been immense pressures on availability and prices have been soaring. So much so, the government has stepped in to subsidise wheat to keep the cost of a baguette down. But the war has forced bakers to question whether there could be another way of feeding Senegal’s huge appetite for bread. Tim Whewell meets the bakers experimenting with local grains, like sorghum, millet and fonio, that can grow in Senegal’s climate. But can they convince their customers to change their tastes and say bye-bye baguette?
Produced by Phoebe Keane
Field producer: Ndeye Borso Tall Additional
Research: Azil Momar Lo and Nicolas Negoce
Production coordinator: Iona Hammond
Editor: Penny Murphy
The fathers of Michael Brown and Terence Crutcher, as well as George Floyd's uncle, reflect on the moment that forever altered their families’ lives following the killing of their loved ones by police officers in the US. Poet and songwriter Cornelius Eady navigates sobering and moving first hand accounts of what it means to raise a black man in America today. He learns how three father figures have coped in the face of harrowing loss.
From the fields of Ukraine to a bakery in Beirut, we find out what it costs to produce a global staple - bread.
Indonesia continues to search for answers and comfort after more than 130 fans died at a football match. There appears to have been a deadly combination at the Kanjuruhan stadium in Malang, East Java, of over-crowding, tear gas being fired by police and blocked exits during the ensuing panic. The president of Fifa, the game’s world governing body, called it a “dark day” for football. Host James Reynolds has spent the past week hearing from survivors, who describe how they feel lucky to be alive and now want nothing more to do with football. He also brings together two Indonesian sports broadcasters for their assessment of what went wrong.
Leicester is one of the most diverse cities in England – often presented as a shining example multi-cultural Britain. But tensions between some factions have been brewing in the city for months and boiled over recently when there were violent clashes which led to dozens of arrests. Assignment investigates why sections of the Muslim and Hindu communities that once lived together in harmony are now at odds.
Reporter: Datshiane Navanayagam
Producer: Hayley Mortimer
More than a decade after the UN raised the alarm on the scale of sexual violence in the Democratic Republic of Congo, sexual violence remains a persistent issue. Congolese journalist Ruth Omar investigates the complex issues that continue to feed the problem, and meets local activists fighting for change.
The world has witnessed extraordinary protests across Iran during the past fortnight. It followed the death of 22-year-old Mahsa Amini. She was arrested and detained after allegedly breaking rules over covering her hair. She collapsed and fell into a coma at a detention centre, and died three days later in hospital. Her arrest was by the so-called Morality Police: a special police unit, tasked with ensuring the respect of Islamic morals and enforcing a specific dress code. Iranian women - and some men - share their stories. Tara, Sara and Ali are protesting on the streets of Iran, despite knowing the danger that places them in.
Inflation in Argentina is racing towards 100%. In a country where prices are constantly on the move, it’s hard to navigate daily life as salaries slump and the cost-of-living soars.
But, after decades of lurching from one economic crisis to another, Argentines have developed their own techniques for dealing with soaring inflation. In this week’s Assignment, Jane Chambers travels to the capital Buenos Aires to find out how people from all walks of life are coping.
People in places like Diego Maradona’s hometown have to queue for food parcels to get by. The dollar is increasingly being used as the alternative economy and an outspoken Presidential Candidate has come up with a strategy to deal with the billions of dollars owed to the International Monetary Fund.
Presenter/Producer Jane Chambers with help from Buenos Aires based journalists Lucinda Elliott and Isobel McGrigor
Studio Manager: Neil Churchill
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman and Iona Hammond
Editor: Penny Murphy
Ghana is Africa's leading producer of gold. The majority of Ghana's gold mining operation is legally undertaken by national and global mining corporations but it is estimated that in recent years as much as 35% is produced by small scale miners, much of it illegally. This practice, known as galamsey, is a danger to the miners and the environment around them and it is estimated that up to 60% of Ghanaian bodies of water are polluted as a result. But when job opportunities are not as available as precious minerals, what options do locals really have?
Cakes Da Killa is in Atlanta, the epicentre of hip-hop and home of trap music. The success of southern queer artists like Lil Nas X and Saucy Santana has brought more diversity into the genre, but boundaries and prejudice are still strong. Despite differences in their backgrounds, lives and music, the performers Cakes speaks to are driven by a common goal – to be creative on their own terms without bowing down to pressure from labels and the industry to conform. Will they succeed to build a more inclusive hip-hop for the future? Featuring artists Latto, Omeretta, Ripparachie and Jamee Cornelia.
All banks in Lebanon have been shut indefinitely. They say it is for safety reasons following a string of raids by customers demanding access to their own money. In one incident, a woman armed with a toy gun staged a bank hold-up to pay family medical bills. Although the authorities have condemned the raids, they have drawn widespread public support. Since the 2019 collapse of Lebanon's financial system, 80% of the population is struggling for money. There are water shortages and frequent power cuts. We speak to Ghida who backs the bank raids because, she says, people are desperate. We hear from Elize, a cancer patient who shares her experiences of trying to get the drugs she needs to stay alive. Her doctor, professor Fadi Nasr, reminds us how hospitals in Lebanon used to be the best in the Middle East but they have now run out of basic supplies.
Israel’s ultra-Orthodox Jewish community is struggling to come to terms with high-profile sex abuse scandals. In the past year, two of its leading lights were accused of taking advantage of their status to sexually assault vulnerable women, men, and children. What has added to the shock is how, after one of the alleged attackers committed suicide, religious leaders in this insular, devout community defended him and even blamed his victims for causing his death by speaking out.
The response sparked anger and triggered an unprecedented wave of activism to raise awareness of hidden sex abuse within the ultra-Orthodox world. Some are describing it as a “me-too” moment. The BBC’s Middle East correspondent, Yolande Knell hears from survivors of sexual assault and the campaigners within the ultra-Orthodox community working towards lasting change.
Presenter: Yolande Knell
Producers: Gabrielle Weiniger and Phoebe Keane
Editor: Penny Murphy
Photo: A child sex abuse survivor prays at the grave of his alleged abuser)
In August 1972, Idi Amin publicly condemned Ugandan Asians as ‘the enemy’, enforcing a brutal policy that ordered them to leave the country within 90 days. It is estimated between 60-70,000 South Asians left Uganda in fear for their lives. On the 50th anniversary of the expulsion, BBC reporter Reha Kansara follows her mum and aunt as they return to Uganda together for the first time.
Homophobia and misogyny are ingrained in hip-hop. But a new generation of women and queer artists are determined to challenge the status quo. Cakes Da Killa is an openly gay rapper who has been recording for more than a decade. In this two-part series he talks to female stars like number one artist Latto, and queer rappers like Ripparachie to find out how far they have come, the issues they still face and where they are going next.
The Queen is lying in state in Westminster Hall in the UK Parliament. Tens of thousands of people have been queuing to pay their final respects. The line has stretched several kilometres along the River Thames. We talk to some of the mourners who have been waiting overnight, sometimes in the rain, to have the opportunity to view the late monarch’s coffin. We hear from three people who have met the Queen during her 70 years on the throne.
Historic levels of flooding in eastern Kentucky in August caused 37 deaths. The State’s governor described it as the worst natural crisis Kentucky has seen. River levels on the North Fork Kentucky River in Whitesburg reached 21ft (6.4m) compared with the previous record of 14ft (4.2m). The floods have tested the resilience of the people in the former coal-mining region of Appalachia. In towns like Whitesburg, where 56-year-old Val Horn runs a community kitchen - huge numbers of people have lost their homes and Val’s kitchen has been preparing 1500 meals a day.
UK Prime Minister Liz Truss has set out a plan to help with people’s soaring energy bills, food and petrol prices. And then there is the challenge of strikes over pay and a record number of people waiting for treatment by the country’s national health service. Host James Reynolds brings together two public sector workers – Kailee, a care home nurse in Lincoln and Alice, a music teacher in Hertfordshire. Kailee says she can no longer always afford treats for her children and drives slower to save a little money on fuel. Alice, meanwhile, seeks discounts and has begun teaching privately to help make ends meet. James also hears the conversations in the city of Derby – once the heart of the industrial revolution but now facing harsh economic challenges. A hairdresser, ice cream maker and striking postal worker share their experiences of tightening budgets. And three small business owners – who run a shop, a pub and a restaurant – discuss the prospect of fewer customers.
The Allan B. Polunsky Unit in Livingston, Texas, used to be known as the Terror Dome for its high rates of inmate violence, murder and suicide. Polunsky houses all the men condemned to death in Texas (currently 185) and nearly 3,000 maximum security prisoners. But since the pandemic, a prison radio station almost entirely run by the men themselves has helped to create community--even for those on death row, who spend 23 hours a day locked alone in their cells.
The Tank beams all kinds of programmes across the prison complex: conversations both gruff and tender; music from R&B to metal; the soundtracks of old movies; inspirational messages from all faiths and none. The station’s steady signal has saved some men from suicide and many from loneliness; it lets family members and inmates dedicate songs to each other and make special shows for those on their way to execution. Maria Margaronis tunes in to The Tank and meets some of the men who say it's changed their lives—even when those lives have just weeks left to run.
Produced by David Goren.
Photo credit (Michael Starghill)
Samburu county, in northern Kenya, is one of many places where it is normal for girls as young as 11 to be married, often to men more than three times their age. These marriages are additionally traumatic because the child brides are forced to undergo female genital mutilation the day before the wedding. For this documentary Lisa-Marie Misztak meets Josephine Kulea, a remarkable Samburu woman on a quest to stop these practices deeply embedded in her culture. Lisa-Marie also meets the girls Josephine has taken under her wing, who are now rediscovering childhood and getting an education.
It has been called "a monsoon on steroids" by one United Nations chief after record-breaking rainfall and floods destroyed over a million homes in Pakistan leaving many homeless. Buildings, crops and vital infrastructure have been damaged, destroyed or submerged in water affecting about 33 million Pakistanis. Nauroz Jamali helped start a group to support those in the flooded villages. Abraham Buriro is also a volunteer and host James Reynolds hears what the situation is like for them and where they need the most help.
As Boris Johnson prepares to stand down as UK Prime Minister, the BBC’s Ritula Shah asks what his premiership has meant for Britain’s standing in the world. In just three years in office he was a key player in world events – Brexit, the COP 26 climate summit, the war in Ukraine. He championed an idea of ‘Global Britain’ – what did that mean and how will his colourful and controversial leadership be judged in countries around the world?
Max, Alyona, Serhiy, Oleg, Alina and Vladyslav are leaving school this year - six 17 year olds full of dreams. Serhiy plans an epic bike ride; Max pours his heart into music - and they’ve all turned up for the prom that marks their passage into adulthood.
But their school, School no. 20 in Chernihiv, has been shelled badly by the Russian army, and the school leavers face a future with none of the old certainties. In the early morning of February 24th, ’My mother came in and said that the war had begun… it was unreal,’ Alyona says ‘I just went back to bed thinking it was cool that I didn't have to go to school and could sleep in. And then, when I finally realised… it was as if someone took the ground from under your feet, and now you’re kind of weightless.’ Alina tells us of the weeks she spent in the cellar, sleeping on a shelf meant for jam and trying to revise by candle light. When the fighting died down, she made her way across her bombed city to charge her phone at a special park bench fitted with solar panels.
All six have found themselves changed forever by the last few months. They are thinking deeply about what will happen next. Vlad is still planning to study IT, but who knows? ‘If my country needs me, then so be it. I’ll serve in the army.’ Yet despite it all, they are teenagers still. Toffee popcorn, model dragons, and dresses all feature in a documentary full of life.
The teenagers plan to stay in touch with one another in the years to come, even if their lives are scattered. And Assignment plans to stay in touch with them too. Alyona reaches out in this first episode to other teens in Ukraine and the wider world.
‘I want to say to all the people who are safe - don’t feel bad about it. It’s fine that you can eat, or smile, or just go for a walk and enjoy your life in peace. You must live your life!’
With special thanks to Vladyslav Savenok and the staff and pupils at School no. 20, Chernihiv.
Presenter: Olga Betko
Producer: Monica Whitlock
Editor: Penny Murphy
Studio Managers: James Beard and Graham Puddifoot
Production Coordinator: Gemma Ashman
(Image: Leavers from School no 20, Chernihiv, Ukraine. Credit: Vladyslav Savenok)
By examining internet search data, Ben Arogundade discovers the surprising stories of how, from the tiniest villages under attack to major cities hosting thousands of refugees, people are navigating their difficult circumstances and managing to live in the spaces between conflicts.
August 24 is always a significant date for Ukraine, as it marks official independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. This year, however, it also marked six months since Russia invaded the country. Russian officials initially predicted a short campaign but the fighting shows no sign of ending soon. The human cost has been immense – thousands of lives have been lost on both sides. Three women share what it is like to have family members involved directly in the war. We also hear messages from a Ukrainian military sniper, a 20-year-old volunteer military interpreter and a former US marine who is now one of thousands of volunteer fighters in the country. Meanwhile, a Russian woman in Riga describes the impact of the war on her family and a Russian man living in Moscow is calling for truce.
Why are Native Americans striving to ‘reclaim’ the game of lacrosse?
Lacrosse may have the reputation as a white elitist sport, played in private schools. In fact, it was originally a Native American game, practiced across North America before European colonisers arrived.
As white settlers pushed westwards, taking land and resources, they also took lacrosse as their own. They stopped Native Americans from playing it, alongside prohibiting other spiritual and cultural practices.
But now a Native American grassroots movement is aiming to 'reclaim' what they call "the Creator's game". In doing so they want to promote recognition for their peoples and nations.
Rhodri Davies travels to Minnesota, in the American Midwest, to talk to Native Americans about how lacrosse is integral to their identity.
Producer: John Murphy
Editor: Penny Murphy
Studio Manager: Rod Farquhar
Production Coordinators: Iona Hammond and Gemma Ashman
(Image: A game of traditional lacrosse begins with sticks raised and a shout to the Creator. Credit: Rhodri Davies/BBC)
What are people looking for online within the world’s major war zones? By examining internet search data, Ben Arogundade discovers the surprising stories of how, from the tiniest villages under attack to major cities hosting thousands of refugees, people are navigating their difficult circumstances and managing to live in the spaces between conflicts.
What are people looking for online within the world’s major war zones? By examining internet search data, Ben Arogundade discovers the surprising stories of how, from the tiniest villages under attack to major cities hosting thousands of refugees, people are navigating their difficult circumstances and managing to live in the spaces between conflicts.
Odesa, legendary Black Sea port city and vital geo-strategic nexus of global trade, is living through Russia's war against Ukraine. Always fiercely independent, both from Moscow and Kiev, its legendary past has given the city a reputation of possibility and promise.
A quarter of a million people have left Odesa. Its beloved holiday beaches are closed and mined, yet life has gradually returned to its performance spaces: concerts, opera, spoken word. Recordings made since the first days of the war interweave with the fabulously rich cultural history of the city.
Founded in 1794 by Catherine the Great as part of her expanding empire of Novo Rossiya, Odesa began as a dusty boom town of enormous opportunity and possibility that connected the chill of Imperial Russia to the warmth of the wider world. In some ways nothing has changed. A port city possessed of a unique argot - 'Odesski Iazyk' (a fusion of Yiddish and Russian); eternal optimism; a wicked sense of humour; more violinists than you can shake a bow at; poets and writers galore; and a gallery of rogues, real and imagined.
Perhaps its most beloved literary son is Isaac Babel. Raised in the Moldovanka- still a place of liminal existence, his Odessa Tales of gangster anti-heroes like Benya Krik are forever interwoven with how Odesites and the wider world imagine the city - beautiful and bad! It is of course only partially true. Film-maker Sergei Eisenstein's Battle Ship Potemkin also put the city on the world map and the first film studios in Russia sprang up there. with its ready supply of sunlight. From foundational boom town days onwards its streets and people could make you rich, or ruin you. In the crumbling days of the Soviet empire it was a place to dream of escape to a world beyond.
Babel and Eisenstein are just two among many who, since the 19th Century have helped created the myth of Old Odessa -poets and writers, musicians and comedians who flourished in what was a largely Jewish city until 1941 and the Nazi invasion of Russia. Legendary violinists ever since David Oistrakh are forged there at the Stolyarsky School, now closed due to war.
Musician Alec Koypt, who grew up in the mean streets of Molodvanka, shipping proprietor Roman Morgenshtern, journalist Vlad Davidson, translator Boris Dralyuk, poets Boris and Lyudmila Kershonsky and others are our contemporary guides as the voices of the past bring forth ...
In August 2021, the Taliban entered the capital Kabul, unchallenged, to take control of Afghanistan, 20 years after the Americans toppled them from power.
The country was turned upside down.
One year on, the list of challenges is long, including the millions who are facing hunger amid a dire economic and humanitarian situation. As well as warning about malnutrition, the United Nations has urged the world not to forget the plight of the country's women and girls.
Three Afghans still living in the country discuss the changes to their lives with host Anna Foster. Two are young women and they reveal the severe restrictions to their rights, education, freedom and choice of clothes.
Tens of thousands also fled the country last August, and we bring together Afghans who escaped and are now living in Poland, Germany and the United States. Although grateful for their safety, the emotion and pain remains at having often left loved ones behind.
“I miss my home. I miss my mother. I miss my room. I miss my bed,” says Laleh in Berlin. “I miss everything about my country.”
Sandwiched between Romania and Ukraine, the former Soviet Republic of Moldova has recently been awarded EU candidate status.
In an echo of what happened in Ukraine, Moldova lost a chunk of its eastern territory to separatists in a short war 30 years ago. The separatists were backed by elements of the Russian army. Since then Transnistria has remained a post-Soviet “frozen conflict.”
In recent months almost 500,000 Ukrainian refugees have crossed into Moldova – the highest per capita influx to a neighbouring country. Up to 90,000 have remained in Moldova, one of Europe’s poorest countries. The republic’s president has warned that President Putin has his sights set on her country. Tessa Dunlop travels to Moldova to hear what Moldovans think about the war in Ukraine and their country’s future.
Produced by John Murphy
(Image: A Russian armoured vehicle at the border crossing with the breakaway enclave of Transnistria in the village of Firladeni, Republic of Moldova. Credit: BBC/John Murphy)
A year on from the Taliban takeover of Kabul on 15th August 2021, Sahar Zand talks to some of the Afghans who featured in her 2019 World Service programme Afghan Stars, which told the story of a ground-breaking TV music talent show in Afghanistan, which was won for the first time by a female singer. The Taliban had singled out the programme for special criticism, as it both promoted music, which their spokesman considered ‘haram’ (forbidden), and because it promoted the voices of women, which, he had said, should not be heard in public. The current situations of the musicians and media personalities whom Sahar has traced are a mirror of what Afghans have experienced in the past twelve months.
The man who stole the atomic bomb. Klaus Fuchs is the spy who changed history - why did he give the blueprint to the Soviets? This is season 2, episode 1: A grave matter. Search for The Bomb wherever you get your podcasts.
From the fuel that powers them to the drivers who drive them, engineers are innovating every aspect of the automobile, including solar-powered vehicles, full automation, clean fuel cars and electrification. Three engineers at the forefront of reimagining the car are on a panel hosted by Kevin Fong answering questions from an audience at the Science Museum in London, and on video link across five continents worldwide.
We're seeing drought all around the world. Without significant rainfall, lakes and rivers have been drying-up, pastures are becoming dusty deserts and crops are failing to grow. As well as the devastating effect on nature, drought has an economic and human cost - particularly in the poorest parts of the world.
The United Nations warns that millions are at risk of severe hunger, in particular in Somalia, Kenya and Ethiopia. We hear from two families in Kenya who are struggling with rising food prices as their own crops fail. Michael tells us about the impact on his mother, who has a small farm, and Odongo worries about the health effects of the drought on the people living in Nairobi.
France is experiencing its worst drought since records began. We bring together two French wine growers who are desperate for rain as their crops are suffering. They warn it could be a “huge problem”. Meanwhile, in Iraq, drought continues to be a concern, as temperatures increase. Two Iraqis tell us how they are trying to cope.
When the president stands accused of drug trafficking, what hope is there? From 2014, for eight years Juan Orlando Hernandez ruled Honduras like his personal fiefdom. A Central American strongman comparable with some of the worst from decades past, under his presidency Honduras began a rapid descent into a so-called “narco-state”. The allegations against his government soon started to mount up: human rights violations, corruption and impunity; accusations of torture and extrajudicial killings by the police and military. And at its heart, the claim by US prosecutors of a multi-million dollar drug smuggling ring, overseen from the presidential palace itself. Just weeks after he left power in January 2022, Juan Orlando Hernandez was arrested and extradited to the US to face drug trafficking charges. American prosecutors allege he used his security forces to protect some drugs shipments and eliminate competitors.
Will Grant, the BBC’s Central America Correspondent, finds out what life was like under the disgraced president and meets some people trying to instil a little hope in a nation which hasn’t had any for a long time. He meets Norma, the mother of Keyla Martinez, who was killed in a police cell. Initially, the police said she had killed herself but hospital reports later proved this wasn’t the case. Now, can Norma Martinez’s campaign for justice bring a sense of hope to those who don’t trust the authorities and have endured years of rampant corruption and police impunity?
Producer: Phoebe Keane
Fixer in Honduras: Renato Lacayo
In homes across the UK, partition is not history but a live issue for its young descendants. Over the course of a year, Kavita Puri follows three people as they piece together parts of their complex family history and try to understand the legacy of partition and what it means to them today. She connects with a young man who goes to the Pakistani village where his Hindu grandfather was saved by Muslims; a woman who has always thought of herself as British Pakistani but a DNA test reveals she also has roots in India; a woman with Pakistani heritage and a man with Indian heritage plan their wedding and realise that their families actually originate from within an hour of each other in the Punjab.
Women’s football is on an incredible high around the world after a month of five international tournaments with record breaking crowds. Those tournaments have delivered new champions, new interest and new hope. The new champions are Papua New Guinea, South Africa and England. Perhaps more predictably there have also been trophies for the USA and Brazil. The success has created a discussion about how this is a significant moment in the development of the game. Stacey Copeland who was in England Under-18s, former England defender Fern Whelan and BBC World Service Digital and Sport Editor, Anna Doble discuss how Euro 2022 can change the course of women’s sports.
Ukrainian forces have launched a counteroffensive to retake Kherson, the largest city captured by Russia in this year's invasion. But the occupiers are redoubling their efforts to integrate the city and surrounding region into Russia - and they need the help of local collaborators. A few Ukrainians are eagerly serving the invaders. But many key workers - teachers, doctors and other state employees - are forced into a cruel choice. They must agree to work according to Russian rules, betraying their country - or else lose their jobs. Tim Whewell reports on life behind Russian lines in Kherson - and talks to some of those who've thrown in their lot with the occupiers, including the eccentric former journalist and fish inspector who's now deputy head of the region's Russian backed administration.
Writer Claire Hynes goes on a personal journey to uncover the story of an Antiguan foremother, who is thought to be one of the first women to flee a slave plantation in the Caribbean island of Antigua. Claire grew up learning a 200 year-old story passed down through generations about her enslaved ancestor known as Missy Williams. As a young woman Missy risked her life to escape the physical and sexual brutality of plantation life, hiding out in a cave. Inspired by her courage and intelligence, Claire travels to the island of Antigua to find out about Missy’s life, the extreme challenges she faced and how she managed to survive.
Parts of the world, such as Europe, have experienced record temperatures and, amid the heat, wildfires are burning. In the United States, there are several fires across large parts of the country. We bring together three specialist wildland firefighters to share what it’s like to do one of the most dangerous jobs in the world. Whitney Lindsay, in Texas, became a firefighter four years ago as part of a special program involving military veterans. Jonathon Golden in Utah retired in 2019 after firefighting for 12 years. Chris Ashby in Oregon is both a firefighter and a crew boss. They discuss with host James Reynolds the impact of climate change, the rewards and the strains of the profession.
Tigers are making a remarkable comeback in Nepal. The small Himalayan nation is on track to become the first country to double its wild tiger population in the last decade. A new census will be released on International Tiger Day (29th of July). The recovery is the result of tough anti-poaching measures that have involved the military and the local community. Other iconic species including rhinos and elephant populations have also increased. But this has come at a cost, there has been an increase in tiger attacks on humans. Rebecca Henschke travels to Bardia national park, to find out what’s behind the conservation success and what it means for the community living with the Tigers.
Presented by Rebecca Henschke
Produced by Kevin Kim and Rajan Parajuli, with the BBC Nepali team
Studio mix by Neil Churchill
Production coordinators Gemma Ashman and Iona Hammond
Editor Penny Murphy
The 2022 Commonwealth Games is being hosted by the UK’s central city of Birmingham - ethnically diverse and where the age profile is younger compared to other British cities. It is home to many people with familial links to commonwealth member countries such as India and the Caribbean. As Birmingham welcomes 4,500 athletes from around the world, Nina Robinson talks to the city’s ‘Hometown Heroes’ - locals who have been recognised for their contribution to sport.
As temperature records are broken around the world. People around world share with host James Reynolds how to negotiate the warm weather and how the heat is affecting their lives. “It’s 37 degrees here right now,” says Allison in Doha, Qatar, “but we’re at 59% humidity so it’s feeling like 52 degrees outside. If you can imagine just stepping outside into a sauna, that’s basically what it’s like.” Allison discusses her experiences with Julia in Brittany, France, and Alia, a doctor in Lahore, Pakistan.
After two months of a gruelling strict lockdown, Shanghai has emerged a changed city, some residents say. During the 65 toughest days, some were reduced to begging for food and pleading for access to their young children from whom they’d been separated. The regime wasn’t just brutal, some claim, it was largely fruitless, as the omicron strain of Covid continues to spread now. What’s more the economic fallout for China’s commercial capital, and key supply chains across the country and internationally, are only gradually becoming apparent. What’s the legacy of Shanghai’s zero-Covid experiment?
Producer and Presenter Ed Butler
Studio mix by Neil Churchill
Production coordinators Iona Hammond and Gemma Ashman
Editor Penny Murphy
In Zambia, at the Lusaka College of Nursing and Midwifery, college head Dr Priscar Sakala-Mukonka is training the next generation of nurses in their new Critical Care department. Once qualified, her students will join a health care system that is critically short-supplied and short-staffed - not due not to a lack of new nurses, but due to a shortage of paid positions. Despite decades of investment, there is still only 13 nurses per 10,000 people in Zambia, compared to 175 in Switzerland. Many qualified nurses are officially unemployed, and those with jobs do the work of many. Feeling demoralized and undervalued, many have left to pursue nursing careers overseas. What can be done to reverse this trend?
In a week where protestors stormed the residences of its leaders, forcing the president to resign, Sri Lanka continues to face its worst economic crisis in more than 70 years. There have been months of shortages - from fuel and cooking gas to food and medicines. We hear from three doctors in the capital Colombo about running out of essentials such as HIV testing kits. Host James Reynolds also hears from two Sri Lankans about coping among constant shortages.
The incredibly story of Ivan Skyba, the sole survivor of one of the worst atrocities of the war in Ukraine. In March 2022, Russian troops shot dead eight unarmed men in a mass execution in the town of Bucha, outside Kiev. But incredibly, one man who the Russians thought they’d killed , managed to survive the massacre. The BBC’s special correspondent Fergal Keane traveled to Ukraine to uncover what happened and meet Ivan Skyba, the man who came back from the dead.
Photo: Ivan Skyba who survived the massacre at 144 Yablunska Street in Bucha, Ukraine (BBC)
Reporter: Fergal Keane
Producers: Orsi Szoboszlay and Alex Last
Fixers: Sofiia Kochmar-Tymoshenko, Viacheslav Shramovych, Rostyslav Kubik
Series Editor: Penny Murphy
Studio Mix: Graham Puddifoot and Neil Churchill
Production Coordinators: Gemma Ashman and Iona Hammond
Deep in the jungles of Bangladesh, a small group of women secretly practise army-style drills. This small team, made exclusively of female village residents, are fighting a global economic force - the world’s insatiable appetite for shrimp. The BBC's Faarea Masud investigates as the demand for shrimp is destroying the land the women have farmed for centuries, and they are willing to do everything they can to protect it from the illegal intensive farming which renders their farmland rapidly unusable. With allegations of payments made to corrupt officials to turn a blind eye, and with little financial clout themselves, the women have taken matters into their own hands in the battle with the global shrimp industry.
Less than three years after winning a landslide victory, the UK’s Conservative party Prime Minister Boris Johnson has resigned. It follows a series of political scandals, election defeats and his own party’s loss of trust and confidence in his leadership. During his time in office, Johnson had to deal with a number of unexpected global situations: a pandemic, the economic fallout of war in Ukraine and the ongoing cost of living crisis. But it was questions about his character that brought him down and scandals such as ‘Partygate’ where he attended group gatherings at 10 Downing Street, during lockdowns. Two journalists in Belgium and France discuss Boris Johnson’s reputation abroad and the reaction of European leaders with host James Reynolds.
How would you cope it you were at the centre of a war?
In March 2022, the BBC told the stories of four young women whose lives were changed forever by war in Ukraine. They were not soldiers, activists or politicians. They were civilians, not used to war or how to deal with it. They kept audio diaries that told a raw truth about loss, hope and even love. Some packed up and left with their children while others remained in the eye of the storm.
Among them, a language teacher in Kyiv called Alexandra who did not know if her parents were still alive in the besieged city of Mariupol. Mari, a model and dancer, who was caught up in shelling in Chernihiv. And Yulia, who gave birth as bombs rained down on Kharkhiv.
But what’s happened to them since?
Assignment tries to trace them, to discover how their lives have changed in four months of war.
(Photo Credit: Mari Margun)
The city of Macapá is in the middle of a river archipelago with around 50 villages and 14,000 inhabitants, where the Amazon meets the Atlantic Ocean. Some of these communities are almost impossible to reach, with dense mangroves and fluctuating water levels making the journey dangerous. For a long time, conflicts were resolved by local leaders, from theft, to land disputes, to rape. The machete was often the quickest recourse to justice. Judge Sueli Pini visited Macapá 20 years ago. Seeing the problem, she founded a system that’s unique in the world, the “floating court.”
It is being described as the deadliest human smuggling incident in US history after more than 50 men, women and children were found dead in an abandoned truck in San Antonio, Texas, in the United States. The temperature inside was close to 40 degrees Celsius - more than 100 degrees Fahrenheit. One police chief called it a “crime against humanity”. The incident has once again provoked discussion about those who risk their lives to fulfil their dream of getting into America. Host James Reynolds hears conversations with Latinos in Texas, talking about their experiences of growing up within two cultures.
When President Abiy Ahmed came to power in Ethiopia he was seen as a reformer who was heralding a new era of hope. In 2019 he was even awarded the Nobel Peace prize. But less than a year later he ordered a military offensive against regional forces in Tigray in the north of the country. He said he did so in response to an attack on a military base housing government troops there. It’s a conflict that has been characterised by an almost constant media blackout in Tigray. In the absence of detailed reporting, rumour, denial and misinformation has been rife. But a few dedicated journalists have been working hard to get at the truth. Chloe Hadjimatheou hears from one of them as she tries to unpick fact from fiction in Ethiopia’s information war. Produced and presented by Chloe Hadjimatheou Editor Penny Murphy Studio mix by Neil Churchill Production coordinators Iona Hammond and Gemma Ashman
Thousands of Ukrainians are fleeing to Israel – joining a million-plus former Soviets who have already moved to this Middle Eastern nation, with profound consequences for both Israel and the region. Tim Samuels investigates this very modern ‘exodus’ of Jews, once again running from Eastern Europe, a journey so many of their ancestors made before. He meets Ukrainian refugees in a Tel Aviv immigration hotel trying to start a new life for themselves after fleeing from the horrors of the conflict, but also finding themselves sharing the same facilities as Russians who have left their country too for Israel.
Back in February, when Russian forces began their invasion of Ukraine, their tanks were heading towards Kyiv. The Russians retreated before making it to the centre of the city, but left devastation in every area that had been fought over in those weeks. In a café in Kyiv, the BBC’s correspondent Joe Inwood met up those now living and working in the city to hear how it is changing and recoverin. The District One Foundation is a 1000-strong team of volunteers dedicated to helping restore damaged homes, schools and hospitals, and give whatever support they can to people returning to live in the city. The work is challenging, but they say it’s energised them and given them a sense of great positivity. He also talks to, two photographers and an artist who how their day to day work has changed, but their art can be put to essential use on social media and beyond, informing the rest of the world about the war and how life is in Ukraine.
Kenyan politicians are spending millions of dollars on campaigns to win lucrative political office in August's crucial elections. With 75 percent of Kenyans under the age of 35, securing the youth vote will be key. But amid a youth unemployment crisis, many have grown disillusioned about the chance for real change. Dickens Olewe travels to Nairobi to meet the young Kenyans who instead see the election campaign as a new business opportunity, a new "hustle" to extract cash from competing candidates. Photo: Supporters gather at Kenyan election rally. (AFP/Getty Images)
Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov speaks to the BBC’s Russia editor, Steve Rosenberg, about Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and the impact of the war on Russia’s standing in the world. Now that Russian troops have focused on the east of Ukraine, what are Russia’s war aims, and how does the leadership in Moscow justify them?
The melting of polar ice sheets, the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, the seizing up of ocean circulation - these are just some of the calamities we risk bringing about through our unabated carbon emissions. Each of these tipping points on its own could have dire consequences for the wellbeing of all life on Earth, including us humans. Justin Rowlatt discovers how global warming may trigger irreversible changes to our planet.
It has a population of 215 million but very few Nigerians have been untouched by incidents of violence and lawlessness which appear to have increased in recent months. Schools, colleges, churches, trains and roads have all been targeted, and people report feeling unsafe wherever they go. We hear the anguish of relatives involved in the recent armed attack on a church in Ondo state in south-west Nigeria, in which 40 people were killed and dozens wounded. A young woman describes the terror of being abducted with her sister and other students.
Ukraine’s farms are under attack. Russian forces are burning or stealing grain and vegetables. The main growing regions in the south are under occupation, cutting off the country from its usual supplies of fresh food. What can the outside world do? Monica Whitlock reports from the village of Brożec in western Poland where farmers have rallied round to send seeds to smallholdings and allotments in Ukraine - ‘Victory Gardens’ in President Zelensky’s words. Each garden feeds far more than one family, as Ukrainian villagers take in internally displaced people from the cities. But as the season for harvest approaches, far more worrying problems face Ukraine’s beleaguered farmers. Producer Monica Whitlock
In Melbourne, Jaswinder describes the epic road trip he made with his fellow members of Sikh Volunteers Australia, to bring healthy food to the victims of severe flooding more than 1000km from their base. Karma is a tour guide through the majestic mountains of Bhutan where he leads treks lasting up to 27 days - but health issues are placing Karma's business in jeopardy. Nearly two years on from the explosion which devastated the city of Beirut, Lebanon is enveloped in an acute economic crisis and Paloma's mum has been telling her to leave. Using social media, Alan Dein connects with people around the world, to hear stories of hope and support, whether in peaceful or unsettled times.
It was a night of intense negotiation which would change the world order as Ukraine gave up its nuclear weapons. Thousands of nuclear arms had been left on Ukrainian soil after the collapse of the Soviet Union. But in the years that followed, Ukraine made the decision to denuclearise. Clive Myrie examines what was at stake in Budapest in 1994, how the deal was finally reached and how it went on to shape the world we face today.
When David Bowie stepped onto the stage as Ziggy Stardust in 1972, one of the world's greatest gay icons was born and the rulebooks were forever rewritten. Ziggy liberated the gay, the bisexual and the androgyne. Bowie was not an activist in the traditional sense but he helped give voice to disenfranchised subcultures in society. To mark the 50th anniversary of Bowie's iconic creation, a host of LGBTQ+ voices and campaigners explain how Ziggy Stardust, inspired a generation of people to celebrate their own self-actualisation, redefining sexuality and setting the groundwork for activism that continues today.
As the battles continue, following the Russian forces’ attack on Ukraine, we share memories from a few of the thousands of people who have lost friends, family, and colleagues during the war. We have been receiving audio messages for people from all walks of life: a toymaker, a photographer, a city mayor, an engineer, soldiers and journalists. They include one from Tatyana, whose younger brother joined the army to defend his country eight years ago. He died in Mariupol at the age of 34. Gregory, a journalist, pays tribute to a much-loved colleague, Vera, who died in a missile attack on her apartment.
More than a million Ukrainian civilians from Mariupol and other war-ravaged towns in the east of the country have been transported over the border into the territory of their country’s enemy, Russia. The authorities there have dispersed them into a chain of “temporary accommodation centres” across Russia, some of them thousands of miles from Ukraine. Russia claims it’s rescued the refugees – and says some want to build new lives with Russian citizenship in places as far away as Vladivostok, on the Pacific Ocean. But many of the Ukrainians are trying to avoid or leave the accommodation centres, and get out of Russia – and they’re being helped by a network of volunteers inside and outside the country. Ukraine says many of the “evacuees” have been forcibly deported to Russia against their will – and they’re being subjected to a form of slavery in sealed camps. Tim Whewell talks to refugees in Russia – and others who’ve managed to leave the country – to try to find out what’s really going on.
An ecological retreat on the edge of the Amazonian rainforest, which has the area's indigenous people as its nearest neighbours. A self declared independent artist's republic in the Lithuanian capital of Vilnius with its own flag, currency and constitution. A peace loving community in New Zealand where everyone shares their money and children can safely roam free. Then there is the Argentinian family which travelled the world by vintage car on a journey that lasted for more than 22 years. Alan Dein connects with people around the world who are reaching further, dreaming deeper and seeking a different path in life.
Have you ever wondered what life is like at the very top of the North Korean regime? Thae Yong-ho was once the Deputy Ambassador of North Korea to the United Kingdom until he defected with his family in 2016. Yong-Ho gives a first-hand account of how and why he risked everything to escape London's North Korean Embassy for a new life in South Korea.
Award-winning writer and magazine editor Tina Brown has spent decades chronicling the British royal family. BBC special correspondent Katty Kay meets her.
Lebanon has been in an economic crisis for almost three years. Beirut is still recovering from an explosion of stored chemicals in 2020, which killed more than 200 people and displaced around 300,000 citizens. Three women talk about how fuel shortages are affecting lives when not everyone can afford to pay the increased cost of energy.
Host Karnie Sharp and the OS team also hear from two protestors in Sri Lanka about dealing with power cuts, and if they believe the recent change of government will improve the situation there.
As the rising cost of living hits some of the most vulnerable particularly hard, two people in the UK share their experiences: writer and recovering alcoholic Sam Thomas, and Jenny Holden, who has a form of chronic arthritis as well as the long-term health condition fibromyalgia, which causes body pain that gets a lot worse in the cold, and means paying higher fuel bills is becoming increasingly difficult.
Russia’s response to accusations of war crimes in Ukraine has been to blame the Ukrainians of bombing their own side. Some people in the UK have been sharing this version of the war on social media. Driven by a conviction that Western governments are responsible for many of the world’s ills, these academics, journalists and celebrities have shared misinformation in their attempts to raise questions about the official narrative of the war. Their detractors say they are useful to Vladimir Putin. They claim there’s a McCarthyist witch hunt against them. All wars are fought as much in the information space as on the battle field and Chloe Hadjimatheou looks at where the new red lines are being drawn in an age of disinformation.
(Image: Kvitka Perehinets has been following the conflict in her home country of Ukraine, from afar. Credit: Kvitka Perehinets)
Alan speaks with Shugofa, an Afghan refugee now living in Rome. He also reconnects with Leo in Moldova, who last spoke with Alan eight years ago and has been on several important journeys since then. As well as them he meets Maureen, a nurse in the Northwest Territories of Canada and Akhil, a blues guitarist in Kolkata, India.
Baltimore Museum of Art is hosting a bold and ground-breaking exhibition curated entirely by 17 members of the its security staff. Broadcaster and art expert Alvin Hall goes behind the scenes to meet some of the guards working on the show, as they begin to install the pieces in the gallery. It has been more than a year-long process, assisted by the museum's chief curator Asma Naeem and mentor Dr Lowery Stokes Sims. Their choices for the show are deeply personal and reflect not only their rich knowledge of art, bur their wide range of interests and concerns outside of museum security work, including poetry, opera, mythology, and social justice.
The head of the World Bank recently warned that the Russian invasion of Ukraine could cause a global recession. There are additional reasons for the global economic crisis of course. We are now more than two years into a pandemic, and every country has its own political situation which may, or may not, contribute to the problem. People from countries including Afghanistan, Lebanon, Indonesia and Turkey share their stories with host James Reynolds about rising prices, as well as shortages of food and medicine.
After 70 years on the throne, Queen Elizabeth II is the world’s most high profile global figure and a unique exemplar of diplomacy and soft power. Much of her role takes place behind the scenes. She came to the throne in 1952 at a time of crisis and as the British Empire disintegrated in the aftermath of World War Two. The Queen’s role as constitutional monarch and head of the Commonwealth placed her at the heart of global crises. We recall how she visited Ghana, Zambia and South Africa as a diplomatic envoy, helping to mediate in the racial politics of post-colonial Africa. From her first state visit to the US in 1957 to repair the transatlantic relationship after the Suez crisis, to the historic 2011 visit to Ireland, we show how reconciliation has been a major theme of the Queen’s reign.
Senegal in West Africa recently introduced much tougher sentences for rape. Until 2019 it was deemed a misdemeanour rather than a serious crime and anyone convicted was often released after a few years, or even a few months. Myriam Francois meets rape survivors and both female and male campaigners to see if the new law is changing the lives of women for the better. Myriam hears how the stigma around rape has in the past prevented many women from coming forward to report sexual violence and how the police are opening new facilities to support women. She visits the country’s first Senegalese run hostel for victims of domestic violence. And she meets the pop star who caused a storm when she revealed her own experience of sexual assault.
Producer Bob Howard
(Image: Woman walking alone in St. Louise, Senegal. Credit: roripalazzo.com/Getty)
For the last decade Alan Dein has crossed the globe via the internet to gather stories from total strangers and occasional old friends. Roberta from Zambia is tending to her chickens when she encounters Alan. She shares stories of her father's commitment to education that has shaped a generation and the pain of loss. Steve, in Kenya, has parked up his taxi with a rooster nearby. He unravels his life story of a boy from the ghetto who found love. In Uganda, Marion the midwife has been picking up the pieces of community life still ravaged by Covid-19. All three stories connect in unusual ways, but show that people are alike all over.
It is 31 years since Christine Towery's brother Robert killed a man and 10 years since he died at the hands of the state of Arizona by lethal injection. For two decades Christine had to live in the shadow of her brother's death sentence. Christine's confidence and faith was blown to pieces. Through conversations with counsellors, campaigners and her children, Christine examines the impact her brother's crime, conviction and eventual execution has had on her and her family. How do you rebuild? Is it time for the US to acknowledge the pain experienced by these 'other victims’?
Is it unethical to eat animals? Can you be a good person if you have spare money and don’t give any of it to charity? What is the moral response to the war in Ukraine? Nuala McGovern is in Los Angeles to talk to Australian Philosopher and Berggruen Prize winner Prof Peter Singer, who has spent his career grappling with these difficult questions. He’s been described as the world’s most influential philosopher and, on one occasion, as the world’s most dangerous man.
Digital advertising has taken over the world. But is it all based on smoke and mirrors? Ed Butler investigates what some claim is a massive collective deception – a trillion dollar marketing pitch that simply does not deliver value to any of those paying for it. Do online ads actually work, or could it be that some of the biggest names in global tech – from Google to Facebook, be founded on a false prospectus?
Once again, the United States is discussing race, guns and mass shootings after the killing of 10 people at a supermarket in Buffalo, New York State. On Saturday 14 May, an armed young man wearing body armour drove more than three hours across New York State to the city. The 18-year-old suspect, who is white, stopped at a supermarket in a predominantly black district and opened fire. Those who died were black. The crime is believed to be racially motivated. Host Ben James hears the reactions among those living and working in Buffalo.
Can music and culture help unite Estonia? Guitar riffs lilt through the air and over the narrow river that marks the border between Estonia and Russia. It’s the first time Estonia’s annual festival Tallinn Music Week has been held in Narva, bringing coach loads of musicians from 30 countries around the world to a normally sleepy city. The organiser moved the festival when the war in Ukraine broke out in order to send a message of unity and to encourage Estonians from the capital to mix with people in Narva, where 97% of Estonians have Russian as their mother tongue. Many can barely speak Estonian at all.
Across Estonia, one quarter of the population are Russian speakers, prompting many to describe this as a threat. When Putin invaded Ukraine on the premise of liberating Russian speakers there, it lead to many in the press to ask ‘is Narva next?’ but a new generation of Russian speaking Estonians are increasingly frustrated by this rhetoric and say it simply is not true. Russian speakers are even signing up to Estonia’s volunteer defence force, ready to fight to defend Estonia should the worst happen. Their allegiance is clear. But is music and culture enough to unite Estonia’s Russian speakers?
Presenter: Lucy Ash
Producer: Phoebe Keane
(Image: Tallinn Music Week festival lights up Kreenholm, an abandoned 19th century textile factory in Narva, on Estonia’s border with Russia. Credit: Phoebe Keane/BBC)
Music credits:
Artist: Trad Attack!
Track: Sõit
Writers: Jalmar Vabarna, Sandra Vabarna, Tõnu Tubli
Artist: Gameboy Tetris and Nublu
Track: Für Oksana
Writers: Pavel Botsarov, Markkus Pulk, Fabry El Androide, Ago Teppand
Artist: Pale Alison
Track: забывай
Writers: Evelina Koop, Nikolay Rudakov
Artist: Jaakko
Sound Installation: On the Border/Rajalla
Alan Dein connects via social media to absolute strangers and old friends to hear how Russia's invasion of Ukraine has blown away their old lives. Some, like Anna, have fled their home town of Dnipro. Others like Verena, from St Petersburg, have fled the secret police whilst in Odesa Roman awaits the fate of his city.
Sana Safi follows the stories of two Afghan women judges who have had to go into hiding after the Taliban takeover. Through encrypted networks and messages, Sana gets unprecedented access to the secretive operatives trying to get the women and their families out of the country. It is a race against time as the Taliban go door to door looking for the women.
James Montague, award-winning author of the The Billionaire’s Club, tells the story of how the super-rich bought English football and Chelsea FC became a sanctioned asset. From Putin’s oligarchs to hyper-capitalist Americans and oil-rich Middle Eastern royal families, James explores the concerns, crimes and crises that large waves of cash have brought to the home of the beautiful game.
Abortion is a deeply divisive issue in the United States that spans the law, religion and women’s rights. It has been a legal right for almost 50 years. Now, the Supreme Court – the top court in the country – is expected to overturn the law and rule that abortions can banned. It’s put abortion back towards the top of the political debate and we reflect some of the conversations taking place among those affected. Two women share their experiences and personal reasons for terminating their pregnancies, including one that resulted from sexual assault.
Kim Tserkezie meets Danny Hibbert, the mastermind behind Switch, a sport of sports consisting of football, basketball, volleyball, netball and handball. She learns how the game is crossing generational and cultural divides in White City, a fast-changing area of west London, and giving opportunities to many, where more established sports are failing. Through speaking to those who Switch has impacted, Kim comes to understand how important Switch, and Danny, are to this diverse community.
While some countries fight to reclaim antiquities that were stolen centuries ago, Cambodian investigators are dealing with far more recent thefts. Many of the country’s prized treasures were taken by looters in the 1980s and 1990s and then sold on to some of the world’s most prestigious museums, including the British Museum and the Victoria & Albert museum, in London. At the centre of many of the sales was a rogue British art dealer.
Celia Hatton joins the Cambodian investigative team and gains unprecedented access to looters who have become government witnesses. The Phnom Penh government has now launched a legal campaign in the UK to get some of its most prized statues back. For many Cambodians these are not simply blocks of stone or pieces of metal, they are living spirits and integral to the Khmer identity. The Gods, they say, are cold and lonely in foreign collections and they want to come home.
Producer: John Murphy
(Image: Monks at Angkor Wat temple, Cambodia. Credit: BBC)
Alan Dein's series of global conversations is now a decade old. Via social media he has crossed the word and heard true stories of love, pain and downright craziness. In those 10 years many of those he first encountered have become digital friends. Now in this time of war and upheaval he reconnects with Daria in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, who has unexpectedly found love.
BBC World News anchor Laura Trevelyan discovered her family’s slave owning past only after the University College London database of slave ownership in the British Caribbean was published in 2013. Back in the 18th Century, the Trevelyan family were known as absentee slave owners on Grenada. The family never set foot on the island, but owned hundreds of slaves and profited for years from the sale of sugar harvested from five different sugar cane plantations. To try and learn more about the legacy of slavery on Grenada and her family’s involvement in the slave trade, Laura Trevelyan and her producer Koralie Barrau go to Grenada.
Kim Tserkezie soars into the skies with the drone racers to learn about a technology that is increasingly shaping the world, both for good and bad. With the help of racing pioneers, she discovers how this young sport is accessible to many. Determined to have a go herself, Kim goes in search of "flow state", the out-of-body experience described by so many who fly drones. But will she even be able to take off?
Ukrainians have been living with the horrors of war, amid attacks from Russian troops, for more than two months. We hear from three Ukrainian women who have decided to take on a dangerous task, to try and make their country safer. They each decided to do an 18-day training course in Kosovo to learn how to clear landmines. We also cross into Moldova, which is the smallest of seven countries bordering Ukraine. It has taken in more than 437,000 Ukrainian refugees. There have been concerns that its breakaway Russian-controlled region of Transnistria could be where Russia moves in next.
Resistance and division among Mexico’s indigenous Yaqui people. Anabela Carlon is a legal advocate for the indigenous Yaqui of Sonora – a fierce defender of her people’s land. And she is no stranger to the immense dangers that face her in northern Mexico, a region dominated by organised crime. In 2016, she and her husband were kidnapped at gunpoint by masked men. And now one of her biggest cases is representing the families of 10 men from her community who disappeared last year.
In Mexico, the Yaqui of Sonora are known as, ‘the undefeated’. In spite of being hunted, enslaved and exiled, they are the only indigenous group never to have surrendered to Spanish colonial forces or the Mexican government. Somehow, eight communities survived along the River Yaqui. But there are deep divisions. Most of all, over whether a gas pipeline should be allowed on their land. Anabela Carlon is adamant it will not happen.
Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer: Phoebe Keane Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla
(Image: Anabela Carlon, of the Yaqui tribe, stands in the dry bed of the river Yaqui. Credit: BBC)
More than 10 years and one billion dollars in the making, the Grand Egyptian Museum is the sort of big statement architecture the Pharaohs would surely have respected. Built on a 120-acre site, just 2km from the pyramids of Giza, and housing 55,000 objects, this will be the world’s largest archaeological museum, served by a purpose-built international airport. It is hoped this prestige project will place Cairo back on the global map as the Egyptian government encourages the revival of mass tourism after a turbulent and damaging decade. Will it work?
We bring together three Ukrainian students, who studied at different universities in Kyiv before the war, to hear about how they are continuing their education. One decided the solution was to do her exchange year abroad early, but the others have remained in the country and it’s not always easy to study. Plus, three Ukrainian women come together to share their stories of leaving their homes with young children. Single parent Sonia is now in Portugal with her daughter, after driving across multiple countries. Marharya is living in Switzerland with three children while her husband remains in Ukraine. Sonia has also remained in Ukraine but moved to a potentially safer area with her husband’s relatives and their daughter.
What is fake, what is real? BBC disinformation reporter Marianna Spring speaks to people caught up in the battle for the truth in the information war over Ukraine. Families and friendships are being torn apart not only by the fighting, but by the radically different versions of reality that Ukrainians and Russians are being presented with, on TV and online. And social media has become a battleground for competing versions of truth.
For weeks Volodymyr Zelensky has been leading his nation against a devastating invasion by Russia. As Ukraine continues to resist one of the most powerful armies in the world, President Zelensky has been lauded as the man of this moment. Yet the man who had spent most of his life telling jokes was a political novice when first elected. The BBC’s correspondent in Ukraine, Jonah Fisher, first met Volodymyr Zelensky in January 2019 when he was known as a comedian and actor. He charts Zelensky's incredible journey from comedian to internationally acclaimed wartime leader of his country.
Kim Tserkezie discovers the fast-paced sport of korfball, which lays claim to being the only full gender-equal team sport in the world. Kim learns about the positive impact korfball has had and explores what other sports could learn from its pioneering approach to gender equality.
A form of oral poetry accompanied on the accordion is the basis of a wildly popular form of music in Lesotho, southern Africa. But jealousy between Famo artists has triggered warfare that’s killing hundreds. Some of the genre’s best-known stars became gang bosses, and their rivalry has helped make rural, stunningly beautiful Lesotho the murder capital of Africa, with the sixth highest homicide rate in the world. Musicians, their relatives, producers and DJs have all been gunned down. Whole communities live in fear, and are now demanding action from politicians and police who are accused of protecting the Famo gangsters. Tim Whewell tells the story of a style of music that developed among Basotho migrant workers in the tough world of South African mines. He meets some of Famo's greatest artists - now disgusted by the violence - and talks to the families of victims of a cycle of revenge that the authorities appear unable to end.
Presented and produced by Tim Whewell
(Image: Famo group leader Ntei Tsehlana was shot at a Democratic Congress (DC) party concert and later died from his injuries. Credit: BBC/Tim Whewell)
On Queensland’s Western Downs the Penfold family, Dan, Karen and their four daughters run 40,000 hectares of beef cattle. The farm has been in the family for four generations and with no sons, it is now the girls who will take over the family business and stay on the land. But they plan to do it differently, embracing the shifting cultures of 21st Century agricultural life; caring for the environment, international trade and sustainability.
Reporting from a war zone is always challenging and accurate information can be hard to establish, but it’s estimated that thousands have been killed since the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Among them are journalists – more than 20 - from different parts of the world. In this edition, we hear from those who are trying to tell the story of this war as it happens in the place they call home.
Dr Kat Arney takes a deep dive into our genetic make-up and tells the story of four pieces of human DNA: the fat gene, the Huntington gene, the CCR5 gene associated with HIV resistance, and PAX6, the eyeball gene.
Kim Tserkezie faces up to her lifelong dislike of combat sports by exploring Dambe boxing, a Nigerian sport with a history that is said to go back as far as the 10th Century. Kim speaks with promoters and fighters from the African Warriors Fighting Championship, as well as their family members, to find out why Dambe boxing is so important to the Hausa community and whether it can one day become one of the world’s global combat sports.
Myanmar is now in a state of civil war. What started in February 2021 as a mass protest movement against the military coup is now a nationwide armed uprising. The junta is under attack across the country from a network of civilian militias called the People’s Defence Forces who say they’re fighting to create a democratic Myanmar. The BBC gained rare access to the jungle training camps where young protests are being turned into soldiers. We follow a single mother and a student who have sacrificed everything to join the fight. They're up against a well-trained military that’s willing to use brutal tactics to stay in power. As the death toll mounts and the world looks away, can they restore democracy?
Reporter, Rebecca Henschke. Produced with Kelvin Brown, Ko Ko Aung and Banyar Kong Janoi.
(Image: 20 year-old Myo left home to join the resistance. Credit: BBC/Chit Aye)
Australia is famous for its unique wildlife and landscapes. But Australia also has the highest mammal extinction rate in the world, and there are big declines in frogs, reptiles, and birds caused by introduced predators and land clearing. Some species are hanging on in small numbers on private land. Could paying farmers and indigenous landowners to return parts of their properties to nature or turn them into carbon farms help solve Australia’s biodiversity crisis?
ABC producer Belinda Sommer takes you to the wide plains and sub-tropical forests of Australia to meet the farmers who are combining commerce and conservation.
The United Nations’ children agency, Unicef, has said that almost two thirds of Ukraine’s 7.5 million children have been displaced during the six weeks since Russia’s invasion.
One of Russia’s key targets has been the southern port city of Mariupol. Thousands of civilians are dead, many more have been left trapped and face an horrendous struggle for survival. Pastor Gennady Mokhnenko is a chaplain from Mariupol. He describes what he has seen and heard in the city, and his efforts to help children to escape. He is joined in conversation by Vasylyna Dubaylo, director of the charity Partnership for Every Child. She’s currently in Poland and has been helping foster children find Ukrainian families.
The war has now separated millions of people in Ukraine from loved ones/ Host Ben James introduces us to Olha and Andrii, a young married couple. Olha took an opportunity to leave with her younger siblings, but is now more than five thousand miles away in Canada. Andrii remains in Ukraine, wondering if he will be called upon to fight for his country. Neither of them know when or if they will see each other again, and they discuss how the war has changed their lives.
Guidance: Contains graphic content.
Beirut, 1974. It is the height of the Cold War. A prominent Yemeni politician is shot dead in his car. Some say, had he lived, Yemen would be a different country today. The killer was never caught, the assassination never investigated.
Political assassinations in the Middle East are almost always unsolved, and reliable evidence can be extremely hard to find. The lack of accountability in these cases is often seen as the reason for the pervasiveness of assassinations in the region. In Yemen, power struggles over the last 60 years have left a long list of murdered political figures. One particular case, the unsolved murder of Yemen’s former foreign minister in 1974, sent shockwaves across the country, and was covered widely in the region and then in the West. Mohamed Noman was a liberal and progressive politician who was building a different path for Yemen, away from authoritarian rule. His death at the early age of 41 had arguably paved the way for decades of military rule in Yemen.
In this documentary, his granddaughter, Mai Noman, sets off on a mission to investigate who could have been behind his murder, almost 50 years after his death.
Claire Graham talks to former BBC foreign correspondent Kevin Connolly about what has historically bound Russia and Ukraine together, and what has pulled them apart.
Hundreds of thousands of Russians have fled abroad in recent weeks, afraid of growing repression in their country, and increasing international isolation, since its invasion of Ukraine. Most of the new exiles are young and well-educated – writers, teachers, artists, IT workers – who fear they could be arrested and jailed for expressing opposition to the war, and even drafted into the army. Tens of thousands have escaped to Russia’s neighbour Georgia, where some are involved in humanitarian efforts to help the Ukrainian victims of the war. But Georgia itself, invaded by the Kremlin in 2008, has a tense relationship with Russia. Tim Whewell travels to the Georgian capital Tbilisi to meet some of the new exiles – and finds they’re not universally welcome. They’re accused of arrogance, of raising property prices – and possibly providing a pretext for the Kremlin to intervene again in Georgia. Presented by Tim Whewell Producer in Georgia: Rayhan Demytrie
(Image: Russian exile, Katya Lapsha Credit: Lago Gogilashvili /BBC)
In the forests surrounding Biamanga, a sacred mountain for the Yuin people of south-eastern Australia, traditional indigenous fire practitioners are preparing to bring fire back into the landscape. Not the raging fires that threatened to destroy it in the deadly Black Summer bushfires of 2019, but cool fires that will help protect and revitalise the land and help restore habitat for the elusive population of koalas who have survived in this forest against the toughest of odds.
With Russian forces withdrawing from some areas of Ukraine, details are emerging of the death and destruction they have left behind. In Borodyanka, 60 km north-west of Kyiv, the main road through the town is lined with destroyed and burnt-out buildings, vehicles and tanks. Olga and Ira lived there and have sent us messages, describing how their homes were bombed. We hear from Vitaliy Shevchenko, the Russian Editor for BBC Monitoring, who as well as covering the war for us, has been trying to get his parents out of Ukraine to safety.
It is 60 years since the Algerian War of Independence. But it still casts a shadow over the present. As France goes to the polls to elect a new president, Edward Stourton presents stories from the country's colonial past which still affect day-to-day life. He tells the surprising story of how, in the 1870s, a tiny insect called phylloxera created the climate for the Algerian War. He hears about the intriguing story of a knife abandoned in a house in Algiers on a night in March 1957. And he talks to the "Milk Bar Bomber", immortalised in the film The Battle of Algiers.
Claire Graham talks to the former BBC News Africa bureaux chief, Milton Nkosi, to get a better understanding of why the post-apartheid dream of a "Rainbow Nation" has still not materialised.
Just before Christmas, 2021, Joel Vilard was driving his cousin home on a dual carriageway just south of Rennes in Brittany. Suddenly, a bullet flew through the window and hit the pensioner in the neck. He later died in hospital of injuries accidentally inflicted by a hunter firing a rifle from a few hundred metres away. A year earlier Morgan Keane, was shot dead in his garden, while out chopping wood. The hunter says that he mistook the 25 year old man for a wild boar.
Mila Sanchez was so shocked by her friend Morgan’s death that she collected hundreds of thousands of signatures to change the hunting laws. She gave evidence to the French Senate and put the topic on the political agenda. The Green Party is now calling for a ban on hunting on Sundays and Wednesdays. But the Federation National des Chasseurs, which licenses the 1.3 million active hunters across France, is fighting back. It argues hunting is a vital part of rural life and brings the community together. Its members were delighted when President Macron recently halved the cost of annual hunting permits.
Yet public opinion, concerned about safety and animal rights, is hardening against hunting and the battle for la France Profonde is on. On the eve of presidential elections, Lucy Ash looks at a country riven with divisions and asks if new laws are needed to ensure ramblers, families, residents and hunters can share the countryside in harmony.
Presenter: Lucy Ash Producer: Phoebe Keane Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: Anthony, from the Ile de France branch of the Federations of Hunters, in the forest of Rambouillet west of Paris. Credit: Amélie Le Meur)
The ocean is central to the Esperance community’s lifestyle and identity. But three fatal shark attacks in three years have had a profound impact on this remote western Australian coastal town. As this small community slowly comes to terms with these recent fatal attacks, they are also navigating their relationship to the ocean and the apex predator that swims within it. ABC producer Fiona Pepper travels to Esperance to hear how this coastal town is grappling with the impact of the great white shark.
An estimated four million people – mostly women and children – have escaped from Ukraine and its war. Host Karnie Sharp hears from two Ukrainian mental health professionals who discuss the impact of war on the minds of children. One is a psychiatrist who remains in the capital Kyiv, and the other a child psychologist who fled the country a few weeks ago and is now safe in Germany with her family.
Claire Graham and guests explain the important, long-running stories that are in the newsClaire Graham talks to the BBC’s Middle East correspondent, Anna Foster, to get a better understanding of how the Saudi Royal family has maintained a strong global influence in spite of events which have drawn worldwide criticism.
What are the big mysteries that people want to understand about life? How to be happy. How to accept old age and death. Wit questions sent in from all over the world, Buddhist nun Sister Dang Nghiem and Sufi Imam Jamal Rahman offer their wise words on some of life’s eternal questions.
The Hungarian prime minister, Viktor Orban, is running for a fourth consecutive term. The election is on 3 April. But now it is taking place against the background of a war on Hungary’s border, following the Russian invasion of Ukraine. Mr Orban is proud of the personal relationship he has established with Vladimir Putin, and proud of what he calls the “Hungarian Model”, whereby Hungary has membership of Nato and the EU on the one hand and strong political and economic relations with Russia on the other. Russia, for example, fulfils the vast majority of Hungary’s gas needs. Nick Thorpe, who has lived in Hungary since the 1980s, asks if the edifice that Mr Orban has carefully constructed over the last 12 years is now threatened by the war in Ukraine.
Guilt can be a nagging sensation that is sometimes very hard to get rid of. Anna, from Switzerland, has experienced this negative feeling since she was very young and constantly feels she has not done enough, for her family, for her work, for the world. She speaks to our new advisor, Rabbi Laibl Wolf, who suggests that focusing on what she can actually do in her life, rather than what is out of her reach, might help her to stop feeling guilty.
Before the war, the Falklands were a distant outpost of Britain, more British than Britain. But these rocky, rural islands were also in decline, losing so many people to emigration, life on the Falklands seemed barely viable. Now the islands are unrecognisable, their politics, economy and infrastructure transformed by lucrative sales of fishing licences to foreign fleets, tourism and the prospect of rich offshore oil deposits. This new prosperity has also attracted newcomers from all over the world – from the Philippines, Chile, Zimbabwe and beyond.
Claire Graham talks to the BBC’s Taiwan correspondent, Cindy Siu, to get a better understanding of China’s reluctance to accept Taiwan’s strengthening independence, and why reunification is so important to China.
In September, 2021 the state of Texas introduced the most restrictive abortion law in the United States. SB8, also known as the Heartbeat Act, prohibits the termination of pregnancy after around 6 weeks’ gestation – the point at which some claim a heartbeat can be detected.
SB8 has given traction to those who advocate for alternatives for women faced with an unplanned pregnancy. Just outside Dallas, a Christian couple are working to bring to fruition a ‘maternity ranch’ to provide homes for pregnant, single mothers.
Of course many women don’t even know they are pregnant by the 6 week mark. So the law has promoted vigilance. And countless women hold their breath as they undergo an ultrasound in the state’s few remaining abortion clinics. If they are in time, they can terminate their pregnancy in Texas. If not, they will have to travel to another state.
But for some Texans, the law does not go far enough – they want a total ban on abortion. And in towns across the state, pro-life activists have pushed local government to declare their communities, ‘Sanctuaries for the Unborn Child’. Assignment reports from Abilene, where pro-life activists are lobbying to put in place an ordinance that would prohibit abortion within the city limits. So far, 39 Texan towns have outlawed abortion completely.
Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer: Tim Mansel
(Image: Aubrey Schlackman is planning on opening a ‘maternity ranch’ for single, pregnant mothers in Texas. Credit: Tim Mansel/BBC)
Author Jerry Barnett investigates why across the western world there has been a recent, steep decline in sexual activity. With the help of experts, activists and the winners and losers in the mating game, Jerry explores this complex issue, and asks where it might lead.
Claire Graham talks to the BBC’s West Africa correspondent, Mayeni Jones, to get a better understanding of how Boko Haram, the militant Islamic group, took hold in northern Nigeria.
Our mothers are at the heart of who we are, whether they are in our lives or not, but this fundamental relationship can be very challenging, with wounds that can last a lifetime. Lucia, from Mexico, asks Buddhist nun Sister Dang Nghiem, how she can find peace with her mother even though they have a difficult relationship. Sister Dang speaks about healing from events that happen during childhood and how a cycle of suffering between parent and child can be broken.
Most Russians are getting a distorted picture of what Vladimir Putin calls a "special military operation" in Ukraine. Even the use of the words “war” or “invasion” is prohibited and state controlled TV does not acknowledge that Russian troops are attacking civilians. Yet news is filtering back to thousands of mothers of servicemen in the invasion force. Many say their sons were deceived about their mission and are being treated as cannon fodder. The Russian authorities and military commanders remain tight lipped. But Ukraine has posted pictures and videos of the dead and captured Russian soldiers on the internet. For Assignment, Tim Whewell follows the story of one young prisoner of war. He looked so terrified during an interrogation that a Ukrainian woman took pity on him and helped his family to get in touch, even though her own home in Odessa was shelled by Russian forces. Will the 21 year old soldier ever be able to return to his family and could the truth about Russia’s defeats and losses change attitudes to the war back home?
Producers: Lucy Ash and Yulia Mineeva
(Image: Pro-Russian service member in an armoured vehicle in the Donetsk region of Ukraine March, 2022. Credit: Reuters/Alexander Ermochenko)
For over a year a civil war has raged in Ethiopia, a result of decades long ethnic tensions. The northern state of Tigray has been subject to a communications blackout for most of the last year. We investigate the impact of shutdowns on civilians, and consider the ways in which conflict plays out not just on the ground, but also online on social media as different groups seek to promote their own cause.
How do you create a nation from the ruins of conflict and neglect? It is the question asked by local journalist, Louiseanne Laris, as her home island of Bougainville prepares to become the world’s newest country. Bougainville lies on the very eastern edge of the Pacific country of Papua New Guinea. It is a lush tropical island, rich in natural resources and minerals with a long history of colonisation and occupation. In 2019 more than 98% of Bougainville’s population voted to separate from Papua New Guinea and become fully independent. But does the island have the capacity to govern itself after years of neglect?
The United Nations says the war in Ukraine has provoked the fastest growing refugee crisis in Europe since World War Two. Leaving their homes and most of their possessions behind, many people have endured long, and often dangerous journeys across the country, before queuing for hours to cross the border. When they reach safety, they are welcomed by family, friends and also the generosity of complete strangers.
Claire Graham talks to the BBC’s Correspondent in Seoul, Laura Bicker, to get a better understanding of North Korea, one of the world’s most secretive countries.
How do we learn to adapt when life doesn't go as we planned? Sometimes the life we believed we should be living and the expectation of the person we would become, no longer matches reality. Max, from Germany, became divorced during the pandemic. Therapist and author Dr Shefali, speaks to him about letting go of the idea of marriage as a ‘happily ever after’ and about how our own ego can stand in the way of personal growth.
Last year, San Francisco had twice as many deaths from drug abuse as Covid. In the central ‘Tenderloin’ district alone, where thousands of homeless people have pitched tents, three people a week are dying. Meanwhile drugs, including highly addictive and dangerous fentanyl, are sold and consumed openly on the street. Many types of crime are rising, and the city is struggling to entice people back after the pandemic exodus. The situation has led some politicians to ask if so-called progressive approaches to policing, homelessness and drug-taking are appropriate – or making things worse. In December, San Francisco’s Democratic Party Mayor said the city needed ‘tough love’ – and declared a state of emergency in the Tenderloin. For Assignment, the BBC’s James Clayton meets addicts and their families, politicians, and charities, to tell the story of how one of America’s most beloved cities is having a crisis of confidence.
(Image: Homeless people sitting on the street in the Tenderloin district in San Francisco, California, United States. Credit: Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
National and regional elections have frequently coincided with internet shutdowns or disruption. Shutdowns can occur whilst polls are open, or are sometimes imposed in response to protests that follow election results. National elections were held on 12 August 2021 in Zambia, and part way through voting, access to WhatsApp, Facebook and Twitter was blocked. We hear from young voters in Lusaka about how the social media blocks affected them.
The war in Ukraine is bringing much destruction and devastation, with fighting and attacks in multiple cities. Host Karnie Sharp guides us through the stories of men and women who are living through it. Many have been forced to flee to find a safe haven, often leaving relatives behind to stay and fight or because they refuse to move from their homes. Hussain is one person we hear from in Kherson, the first major city to fall to Russian troops. Food is in increasingly short supply and he and his wife are restricting their intake, surviving mostly on water, in order to feed their two year-old daughter. We also hear from a couple who have chosen to remain in Kharkiv – Ukraine’s second largest city - which has been besieged by missiles.
When someone young dies it is very hard for those they leave behind, perhaps even more so when they have taken their own life. Jorge, from Mexico, speaks to Buddhist Nun, Sister Dang Nghiem, about how he struggles to forgive himself after his partner took her own life three years ago. Sister Dang shares her experience of losing her own partner. She suggests that acknowledging part of them lives on within you, and letting that part find peace, might help us deal with the guilt and grief that can arise when a loved one dies.
What would it be like if everyone believed you were dead? Lal Bihari knows exactly what that feels like. When he was 22 years old the Indian farmer was told by his local government office that he was dead and no protestations that he was standing before them would persuade the bureaucrats otherwise – after all, his death certificate was there as proof. Whether the victim of a scam or a clerical error, the end result for Bihari was to lose his business and all the land he was hoping to inherit. It took him more than two decades to reinstate himself among the living during which time he tried everything from going on hunger strike to kidnapping someone in the hopes that the police would be forced to concede that a dead man could not be arrested. Today, more than a quarter of a century later, Bihari runs the Association for the Living Dead of India through which he says he has helped thousands of people who have fallen victim to the same thing. He tells his extraordinary story to Chloe Hadjimatheou for Assignment.
Production Team in India: Ajit Sarathi; Kinjal Pandya; Piyush Nagpal and Praveen Mudholkar Editor: Bridget Harney
(This programme was originally broadcast in August 2021)
(Image: Lal Bihari holding a banner for the Association of the Living Dead. Credit: Piyush Nagpal/BBC)
It is often claimed that shut downs are required to stop the spread of misinformation online, particularly during times of uncertainty or protest. In India, one of the world's largest democracy, internet shutdowns are a regular occurrence. According to data published by Access Now, an international digital rights, non-profit organisation, India has been responsible for more shutdowns each year than any other country. Felicia Anthonio, a campaigner for Access Now, identifies and verifies internet shutdowns as they happen around the world, and works to raise awareness of the human rights implications.
Each year Unicef, the United Nations children’s charity, procures billions of dollars of goods for delivery to those most in need all over the word. Many of those supplies will either have come from, or been organised by, the men and women working on the outskirts of Copenhagen in the biggest humanitarian warehouse in the world. The world’s disasters roll through here in waves, and as they do the warehouse takes on a purpose of its own.
When the Russian attacks began, after all attempts at diplomacy had failed, Ukrainians were awoken in their beds by the sound of explosions. Host James Reynolds share the stories of ordinary Ukrainians over the course of an extraordinary week. We hear from men and women in different parts of the country as they prepare for war and try to go about their lives as normal while packing emergency bags, filling their cars with petrol and drawing money from banks. Once war begins, Ukrainians describe their fears and hopes for the future - including its effect on families and children.
Is self-love the key to developing confidence? If so, how does it work? Nadia, from Colombia, doesn’t trust in her own ability to succeed, especially in her career and feels trapped by her lack of self-esteem. She speaks to Sufi teacher Iman Jamal Rahman, who shows her ways to help develop self-love. He suggests that by getting used to focusing on the present moment, rather than the past or the future she can become more confident. He also says that by acknowledging painful feelings rather than trying to fix them, she may find that they lose their power.
From pills that resolve chronic pain issues overnight to diet supplements which promise to help shed pounds in days, the internet is awash with adverts making bold - and often outrageous - claims. Some come with a celebrity endorsement, where household names appear to give their personal stamp of approval to a product. But many of these ads are fake, with customers tricked into parting with more money than they ever intended. For Assignment, Athar Ahmad, investigates the global growth of online subscription scams, where customers are unwittingly signed up to schemes which hit them with hidden charges, unexpected monthly fees and products which are made deliberately difficult to cancel. He hears from victims with chronic illnesses desperately searching for a solution to their ailments, who are instead left out of pocket and he speaks to the celebrities furious their names are being used to endorse such products. The programme sheds light on the creation of this global multi-million pound industry, exposing the tools, tricks and technology designed to scam unwitting customers. And Athar travels to Spain in search of answers about one of these schemes, which has left many customers in the UK feeling they’ve been conned.
Reporter: Athar Ahmad Producer: Anna Meisel Editor: Carl Johnston
(Image: Using a digital tablet with a credit card. Credit: Natee Meepian)
It is 2020. Covid Britain is in lockdown and the world is working from home. In the depths of the deadly pandemic and when people were at their lowest, someone spots an opportunity. This is the story of how people from all over the world were hired to work for a seemingly glamorous and successful design agency - but the whole thing was fake. Who was behind the con? And what on earth were they trying to achieve? Investigative journalist Catrin Nye and her team expose a tangled web of lies, confronting the boss to get to the truth of what really happened.
Outside a war zone, Mexico is one of the most dangerous countries to be a journalist. In 2021, seven journalists were murdered. In the first few weeks of this year alone, the killing of five journalists has prompted an outcry and concern. We hear what it is like when your job is to try and tell stories in a country where four people are killed every hour and where violent crimes fill your news-feeds. For Adrián López Ortiz, the CEO and editor of Noroeste newspaper in the state of Sinaloa, north-western Mexico, it is a long standing problem since he still suffers from injuries during an attack in 2014.
When someone we trust betrays us, the feelings can be corrosive and long-lasting. Nini, from Myanmar, found out a year ago that her husband of 20 years had been cheating on her for a decade and had a child with another woman. They are now divorced. He has moved on with his life, but Nini finds it difficult to let go of a deep resentment. She speaks to writer and teacher Gary Zukav, who suggests that feeling her emotional pain in terms of physical sensations could help her let these feelings go.
With the seat of the Catholic Church on its doorstep and the highest number of priests of any country, Italy is a bastion of global Catholicism. And yet, unlike many other countries, it has failed to confront the scourge of clerical sex abuse. It keeps no official statistics on the issue and the number of convictions remains shockingly low. Survivors of abuse have fallen foul of a combination of cover-ups, complicity and legal failings in their search for justice. After a report in France last year found that there had been some 3,200 paedophile priests there since the 1950s, pressure is growing on Italy for a similar reckoning. For Assignment, Mark Lowen has set out to ask how and why abuse has been hidden in Italy, speaking to survivors, confronting those accused and meeting officials working to uncover the dark secrets that the Italian authorities have been unwilling to investigate.
Reporter: Mark Lowen Producer: Julian Miglierini in Rome and Michael Gallagher in London
(Angel statue, Rome. Credit: iStock/Getty Images Plus)
Trying to cancel some online accounts can be a maze of searches and false hopes, multiple clicks through a puzzle of seemingly unrelated destinations.
This is what has become known as a 'dark pattern'; complex web design that makes it hard for you to do something the website does not want you to do, and employs behavioural psychology to make you do things it does want you to do. It is just one of the techniques used to make us click, buy or subscribe.
Journalist and broadcaster Darryl Morris digs into the methods being used to grip your attention, and examines the persuasive power that is being harnessed. What impact is it having on your free will, and is there anything that can be done to resist it?
An ex-Farc fighter talks about her struggle to integrate into Colombian society after she laid down arms five years ago. Leading women peace builders discuss whether the historic 2016 peace accord delivered on its promises to help women and communities across the country.
For World Radio Day 2022, we tune in to radio stations around the world that connect communities, spark conversations, keep traditions alive and give a voice to their listeners. From Aboriginal Koori Radio in Australia to a community station in India run by rural women from the lowest Dalit caste, the airwaves carry intimate wisdom, vital knowledge, beats and tunes that keep reminding us who we are.
For the past fortnight, the world has watched Canadian truckers block roads to protest against Covid restrictions. A rule that required any truckers entering Canada from the US to be fully vaccinated against Covid-19 or face a 14-day quarantine triggered the demonstations. The protests then grew to include different people who are angry at other Covid restrictions and also at Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's government. Host Karnie Sharp hears perspectives on the protest in Ottawa, and brings together two residents on what it’s like to live and work in the capital, amid the trucks and the wailing horns.
Russia and some Nato member states, including the US, are at odds over the Ukraine crisis. Ros Atkins examines the dynamics at play between Russia and Nato.
Looking back over a long life can provide cause for regret. Incidents from decades past, seemingly forgotten, can suddenly provoke deep sadness. Richard in Malaysia is troubled by the way he acted as a young man. Writer and therapist Dr Shefali offers him guidance on accepting his flaws and living more in the present moment.
Lucy Ash catches up with a warzone bakery comforting people in an east Ukrainian town. She visited in 2017 to tell the story of a small enterprise that was bringing hope to a trapped community living near the frontline. The town of Marinka is in the buffer zone – the ‘grey zone’ - that separates Ukraine from the Dontesk region – now claimed and occupied by Russian backed separatists. For the town’s inhabitants the low-intensity conflict had become an unavoidable part of daily life. But there was one bright spot amidst the gloom – a bakery. It was Ukraine’s first frontline workplace-generating enterprise, and a haven from the politics, propaganda, and violence that had been tearing the town apart. But now, more than four years on, with Russian troops now massing along Ukraine’s eastern border, the threat of all out conflict looms. The bakery’s owner Oleg Tkachenko tells Lucy Ash he hopes there will not be an all out conflict. He fears an invasion could destroy everything that he and his community have built up over the past five years.
(Image: Workers in the bakery in Marinka. Credit: Frederick Paxton)
Sex is everywhere – in popular music and TV programmes, in toothpaste adverts and on social media. Yet in real life, regular sex no longer seems to be such a big priority for people in their 20s. Research in countries including Britain, the United States and Japan has shown that young people are having less sex than previous generations. Twenty-one-year-old student Anoushka Mutanda-Dougherty talks to people her own age to find out why. From "situationships" to “demi-sexual” or “homo-romantic asexual”, Anoushka discovers the different ways young people are navigating relationships.
Women working to help communities caught up in Ethiopia’s brutal war talk about the immense challenges they face on the ground, and we hear the story of "Tsega", who was brutally attacked after she was forced to flee from her home. A co-production by BBC and Georgetown Institute for Women, Peace and Security.
The Winter Games are officially underway as Beijing becomes the first city to host both the summer and winter Olympics. Host Karnie Sharp brings us a conversation between two competitors, who are from countries that don’t traditionally send large teams to snow sports.
Manon Ouaiss is the only woman on the three person Lebanon team while Ornella Oettl Reyes is the sole member, and flag bearer, for Peru. Both are alpine skiers and both are aware of the importance of sending a positive message to those who are cheering them on from the countries they represent.
These Games are impacted by the Covid pandemic and by politics. Several countries have declared diplomatic boycotts over China’s alleged human rights abuses. One protest concerns the treatment of the Muslim Uyghur population. While China denies any human rights violations, we hear from three Uyghur exiles and activists living in Germany, Australia and Switzerland. They discuss their objection to these Games.
The Winter Games are officially underway as Beijing becomes the first city to host both the summer and winter Olympics. Host Karnie Sharp brings us a conversation between two competitors, who are from countries that don’t traditionally send large teams to snow sports. Manon Ouaiss is the only woman on the three person Lebanon team while Ornella Oettl Reyes is the sole member, and flag bearer, for Peru.
The musicians Neil Young and Joni Mitchell have asked Spotify to remove their music from the platform. They have criticised the music streaming service for publishing a podcast that spreads Covid misinformation. It’s sparked a debate about freedom of speech and corporate responsibility. Ros Atkins has been looking into the controversy.
The pandemic has caused many people to reassess their lives...but self-reflection is a journey that can bring challenges. Annie, from Australia, feels she has gained wisdom and a deeper insight into life but it has led to her living almost on 'auto-pilot', without the passion she had before. She speaks to Sufi teacher and interfaith minister Imam Jamal Rahman. He suggests ways we might connect with life more deeply.
The Mexican state of Sinaloa is synonymous with drug trafficking. With the profits from organised crime a driver of the local economy, the tentacles of ‘narco cultura’ extend deep into people’s lives – especially those of women. In the city of Culiacan, plastic surgeons service demand for the exaggerated feminine silhouette favoured by the men with guns and hard cash. Often women’s surgery will be paid for by a ‘sponsor’ or ‘godfather.’ Meanwhile, a group of women trackers spend their weekends digging in isolated parts of the state, looking for the remains of loved ones who disappear in Sinaloa’s endless cycle of drug-fuelled violence.
Producer/presenter: Linda Pressly Producer in Mexico: Ulises Escamilla Editor: Bridget Harney
(This programme was originally broadcast in July 2021)
(Photo: Lawyer Maria Teresa Guerra advocates for women in Sinaloa. Credit: BBC/Ulises Escamilla)
Owen Bennett-Jones examines how the government in Tehran outwitted the United States in Iraq, which resulted in Tehran having more influence in Baghdad than Washington. He also examines how Islamabad pulled off much the same trick in relation to Afghanistan. But whilst Iran was under US sanctions, Pakistan secured its objectives in Afghanistan whilst simultaneously receiving billions of dollars worth of US aid. As one retired Pakistan intelligence chief bragged – the US was helping secure its own defeat.
A woman born after her mother was raped during the Bosnian conflict of the 1990s says the struggle for reparation and reconciliation continues 25 years later. Suzanne Kianpour discusses what we can learn from past atrocities to help resolve the current political crisis, with Oscar-nominated Bosnian film director Jasmila Zbanic, and Council of Europe human rights commissioner Dunja Mijatovic.
Featuring extraordinarily rare recordings, historian Shirli Gilbert presents this new history of life and music under Nazi tyranny. This episode focuses on music-making in the camps and ghettos of Nazi Europe, including stories of music at Sachsenhausen, Vilna and Auschwitz. This includes a wealth of different styles, from Yiddish Tango and rousing camp anthems, to partisan songs and string quartets. Contributors include Lloica Czackis, Krzysztof Kulisiewicz, Anita Lasker-Wallfisch,
There is much international focus on the possibility of a Russian military invasion of its neighbour Ukraine. US President Joe Biden has spoken of “enormous consequences” if that did happen, warning it would “change the world”. Russia has an estimated 100,000 troops on the border with Ukraine but has said it does not want war. While world leaders talk, host Ben James guides us through the discussions among six women in the two countries. In Ukraine, the BBC’s James Reynolds hears from three women in the capital Kyiv about the prospect of war. They include a Olena, a volunteer sniper since 2014 and a professional servicewoman for five years, who is once more prepared to fight for her country.
The cost of food and fuel has risen globally. The pandemic has played some part in it but there are other reasons too. Ros Atkins examines what’s behind the rise in the price of goods and services.
Can we learn to let go of negative thoughts that are bringing us down? Sometimes it can feel as if nothing in life is going the way it should and we judge ourselves for not doing better. Judy is from Thailand and lives in Japan. Her sister has to look after their elderly mother in Thailand alone and Judy is unhappy with herself for not having built a ‘successful’ career in Japan. She speaks to writer and teacher Gary Zukav. He suggests that, even though it sometimes doesn't feel like it, there might be a way to move beyond the control of these negative and damaging feelings.
The high stakes cat and mouse game between police and darknet drug dealers. Police in the UK say they are finally turning the tide on drug dealers selling on the darknet – a secretive part of the internet which has been described as like “online shopping for drugs.”
The UK’s National Crime Agency says recent international takedowns of so called dark markets and arrests in multiple countries are a result of new techniques in cyber policing that is giving them the upper hand. However, BBC research suggests that police around the world have an uphill struggle on their hands as many dealers - known as vendors - have survived multiple market place collapses by operating across many different darknet sites.
The programme explores the major role played by UK dealers in the global business which is estimated to be worth more than a billion dollars a year. The BBC’s cyber reporter Joe Tidy and BBC data journalist Alison Benjamin journey into this hidden world to speak to vendors and buyers and uncover secrets of the trade.
Reporter: Joe Tidy Producer: Paul Grant Editor: Maggie Latham
(Image: An ecstasy pill bought on the darknet, being tested at a lab in the UK. Credit: BBC)
In Zambia, smoking is on the rise. One woman wants to change that. BBC global health correspondent Tulip Mazumdar follows the story of Brenda Chitindi in her efforts to get tobacco control on the agenda. As tobacco production and consumption increase in Zambia, Brenda and others are campaigning for the introduction of a Tobacco Control Bill to the nation's legislature. It is a campaign they have been fighting for over a decade. With a new government elected in 2021, could this be the moment for change?
"Lama", a student in Afghanistan who fears for her safety since the Taliban takeover, speaks to the country's former education minister Rangina Hamidi, who fled to the United States, and to former US Secretary of State and campaigner for women's rights Hillary Clinton.
There is a common misconception that music under the Nazis was either ‘Degenerate Music’ to be suppressed or propaganda music that was officially sanctioned. Historian Shirli Gilbert shows that there was a wealth of different music-making during this period, including secret sessions by Jewish musicians and others, that managed to evade official scrutiny. In this first episode, she explores the music of the Jewish Culture League, as well as the work of Lukraphon and Semer, two Jewish record labels active at this time.
Health professionals will tell you that Covid-19 vaccines have saved millions of lives across the globe yet some people continue to doubt their safety and refuse to get a jab. These differences of opinion are being played out within families: some refuse to get a jab, while others are vaccinated.
An American in Florida and a French citizen in Ireland share the difficulties they have encountered at home with host James Reynolds.
We bring them together to hear how family gatherings can become fraught.
As coronavirus restrictions begin to ease around the world, China is sticking with its Zero-Covid policy. But questions have been raised about how sustainable the strategy is, and how much longer China can keep the virus out. Ros Atkins looks at the dilemma this has created for the country and its leadership.
When we feel taken advantage of by people, it can be very hurtful and leave us feeling bitter. Giving a lot to our friends can come with the expectation that the same is offered in return. This is the experience of Jacob, from India. He speaks to Sister Dang Nghiem who suggests that through giving to ourselves and developing self-love, we find we need less appreciation from others.
Imagine walking down a street in a European capital and meeting your torturer. For many Syrian refugees fleeing war and human rights abuses, Europe was meant to be a sanctuary. So it was a shock when people began bumping into their torturers out shopping or in a cafe. In fact many of those involved in the Syrian government’s notorious interrogation facilities are hiding in plain sight in European cities having used the refugee wave as a “ratline” out of the country. More and more are now being investigated, arrested and put on trial in European courts. But with President Assad firmly in control in Syria the long arm of the state is reaching those willing to testify. For Assignment, Chloe Hadjimatheou and Michael Ertl look at how the Syrian war is continuing to play out in Europe.
Presented and produced by Chloe Hadjimatheou and Michael Ertl Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: A woman shows a picture of her Syrian relatives outside the Higher Regional Court in Koblenz, Germany, 13 January 2022. Credit: EPA/Sascha Steinbach)
The last writings of Ken Saro-Wiwa from prison in Nigeria to an Irish nun in the run up to his execution in November 1995. Smuggled out of prison in bread baskets, they are the final testament of a man who gave everything he had in the struggle for social and ecological justice. As Ken Saro-Wiwa continues to inspire people and movements across decades and continents, these letters form part of our living history, and give us an immediate link with the man behind the hero.
The vaccination and visa controversy around Novak Djokovic at the Australian Open tournament has made global headlines all week. It has also put focus on how sports around the world deal with vaccines in this pandemic.
Professional athletes often follow a rigorous diet and training schedule to achieve optimum fitness. Not surprisingly, athletes care about what they put in their bodies and in some cases they are delaying or avoiding getting a jab against Covid-19.
To discuss how this is playing out in different sports, host James Reynolds brings together an American professional basketball player, currently competing in Istanbul, a sports physician in Mumbai, India and a sports writer in the US. They discuss how the stance of the men's world number one tennis player and other sports stars is having an impact and what might be done to offer reassurance around Covid vaccines.
The Covid vaccination status of men's number one tennis player, Novak Djokovic, has caused a political row. Ros Atkins looks at what Djokovic's case could mean for vaccination in sport.
Being the real you can be difficult, especially if it means upsetting your family. Folake from Benin tries to be a ‘good girl’ and avoids taking decisions her family would not approve of, but she wants to listen to her heart. She speaks with Dr Shefali, an Indian-born clinical psychologist – now based in New York. She is the author of A Radical Awakening, which aims to lay out a path for women to discover their inner truth.
It’s been called the priciest piece of tarmac in the world. In 2014 the government of Montenegro signed a contract with a state-owned Chinese company to build part of a 170 kilometre-long highway – a road that would connect its main port with the Serbian border to the north. The price-tag on the first 42 kilometres of asphalt was a staggering $1 billion - most of which has been borrowed from a Chinese bank. In Montenegro, questions continue to be asked about why the project went ahead when some experts said that it was nonviable. The River Tara – a UNESCO protected site – has been impacted by the building works, and allegations of corruption and kickbacks have hung around like a bad smell. Meanwhile, the economy has taken a massive hit as a result of the pandemic, and some Montenegrins worry about the country's ability to repay the loan. Worse still, a clause in the road contract states that Montenegro may relinquish sovereignty over unspecified parts of its territory if there is a default. But is everything as it seems? Assignment investigates.
Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer: Mike Gallagher Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: A slogan for Chinese construction workers adorns part of Montenegro’s new mountain road. Credit: BBC/Michael Gallagher)
The Amazon is the largest area of rainforest on earth. Bursting with life, it provides us with a wealth of resources. But for each of its potential riches a potential threat is lurking beneath the canopy. Increasing deforestation allows what is hidden within to find a way out, and with it the possibility for wildlife to spread deadly pathogens.
The rapid spread of the Omicron variant of Covid-19 is leading to record infection levels in several countries, and vaccination is a key part of the fight against the pandemic. Host James Reynolds brings together vaccination workers in South Africa, Australia, the United States and the UK to share what’s it like to be part of the global effort to vaccinate.
We also hear from two people in the US and the UK who turned down a vaccination. After almost dying, they regret their decisions. “I had no idea what was going into me when they [health workers] were saving my life - the same as I don’t know what’s in the vaccine,” says Jade in the UK. “It’s silly isn’t it? You kind of overthink one thing but not the other.”
The US Capitol riot on January 6, 2021 has been described by President Biden as a dark day in US history. A year on since the attack, Ros Atkins examines the legal and political fall-out from it.
It can be hard to choose how to spend our precious time. Imam Jamal Rahman, a Sufi spiritual teacher, offers a joyful perspective to Rebecca from the USA.
A giant new canal for the world’s biggest ships is the most ambitious engineering plan yet proposed by Turkey’s President Erdogan, whose massive infrastructure projects have already changed the face of his country. The proposed waterway would slice through Istanbul, creating in effect a second Bosphorus, the busy shipping lane that is now the only outlet from the Black Sea. The president himself has called the project “crazy”. But he says it would “save the future of Istanbul”, easing traffic in the Bosphorus and reducing the risk of a terrible accident there. But the plan has met a storm of opposition. Istanbul’s mayor says it would “murder” the historic city. Critics claim the canal would be an environmental disaster, cost billions of dollars that Turkey can’t afford – and provoke severe tensions with Russia, which is determined to preserve existing rules on traffic into and out of the Black Sea. Will the canal go ahead? Who would lose – and who would benefit?
Tim Whewell reports from a divided Istanbul.
(Image: Turkish coastal safety patrol boats in the Bosphorus, Istanbul. Credit: Yörük Işık)
Wafa Mustafa hasn't heard from her dad since he went missing in July 2013. She, like tens of thousands of others in her position, believes he is being detained by the Syrian government, and is searching for him. In this documentary, she explains how she uses the story of his life to campaign for justice in Syria, and how keeping the memory of her father alive is an act of protest and resistance.
Megha Mohan talks to young people working to diversify science, technology, engineering and maths - fields that will be crucial to the future of our planet, but whose workforces remain predominantly male. She also hears how Nobel Prize-winning astronomer Andrea Ghez overcame gender barriers in her career in science.
Generation Change is a co-production of the BBC and Nobel Prize Outreach
Babita Sharma talks to young people who are trying to save lives by tackling taboos around organ donation in countries including India and the UK. She also speaks to Nobel Prize-winning economist Alvin Roth, who discusses his work on kidney donation.
Generation Change is a co-production of the BBC and Nobel Prize Outreach
Babita Sharma meets young people trying to solve global food problems, including a Lebanese man who worked to feed people after the deadly bomb blast in 2019, and an American woman whose work connecting charities to excess food from restaurants is spreading around the world. She also learns about the work of the Nobel Peace Prize-winning World Food Programme.
Generation Change is a co-production of the BBC and Nobel Prize Outreach
Babita Sharma meets young people from around the world working to fight climate change, including a Kenyan engineer who has designed a solar powered fridge which can be used to transport vaccines on a bike, a Californian teenager who has designed a wind turbine for use in cities, and South Korean protesters taking their Government to court. She also meets Nobel Chemistry Laureate Frances H. Arnold, the co-chair of President Biden’s science commission.
Generation Change is a co-production of the BBC and Nobel Prize Outreach
Another chance to hear from some of the BBC's acclaimed series examining the seismic events shaping Afghanistan before and after this year's return to power of the Taliban. After last week's episode featuring Taliban founder Mullah Zaeef and former President Hamid Karzai, the BBC's chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, hears from a younger generation. Shaharzad Akbar was raised in a refugee camp in Pakistan in the 1990s, became the first Afghan woman to get a degree at Oxford University, and went on to run the country's Human Rights Commission. Arson Fahim and Meena Karimi are both gifted composers with no memory of life before the advent of a US-backed democracy in the country. All see their lives shaped by it, and all three have had to flee Kabul since the Taliban took over. What now for the dreams they cherished?
Hear the whole series at bbcworldservice.com/afghanistan
ustin Rowlatt looks at the monumental challenge of weaning ourselves off fossil fuels. Solar and wind could meet all of humanity’s energy needs, but can we switch over before climate disaster strikes?
According to clean-tech enthusiast and investor Ramez Naam, we have the means at our disposal. Our fossil-fuelled global economy has enabled a rapid collapse in the cost of renewable energy and electric vehicles. And now we are seeing a snowballing of government action to decarbonise our economies, according to UN climate negotiator Christiana Figueres. But many problems remain. Energy historian Vaclav Smil points out that we still have no easy way to store renewable energy, or use it to make billions of tonnes of cement and steel. Sheffield-based ITM Power hope that their green hydrogen could solve many of these problems. Plus, electricity historian Julie Cohn says another option might be to build a global electricity grid.
Two years after the first cases of a mysterious new virus were reported from China, host Nuala McGovern brings together experts in Switzerland, India and Israel who have been tracking the spread and impact of the Covid-19 pandemic and providing advice to governments and health officials. What have they learnt about the effects of the pandemic? What happens next and what are the lessons for the future?
Nuala talks to Dr Emma Hodcroft, a molecular epidemiologist at the University of Bern in Switzerland, Dr Swapneil Parikh in Mumbai, India, and Professor Manfred Green, an epidemiologist based at the University of Haifa in Israel.
The pandemic has meant stopping so many of the everyday things we used to do, including not hugging and kissing others. For Susanna from Italy, not being able to connect with people socially in the way she is used to has led to a deep disorientation. Gary Zukav gives his perspective that it is not the pandemic that has led to her feeling more isolated from others, but rather it is fear of what is different.
Peru has been battered by Covid-19. It has the highest known death toll in the world per capita. But behind the figures there’s another hidden pandemic. By the end of April 2021 around 93,000 children had lost a father, mother, grand-parent, or other primary caregiver to the virus - that’s one in every hundred children. For Assignment, Jane Chambers travels to Lima to meet the families struggling to cope. The immediate urgency of the health crisis is masking a much deeper malaise; that of a generation of children mentally and physically scarred by loss and poverty.
Reported and produced by Jane Chambers Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: Jhoana Olinda Antón Silva and her children in their home at the shrine they built for their father who died of Covid-19. Credit: Paola Ugaz)
A chance to hear once again from the BBC's acclaimed series examining the seismic events shaping Afghanistan before and after this year's return to power of the Taliban. The BBC's chief international correspondent, Lyse Doucet, hears from two key players who have shaped the country's recent history: Mullah Abdul Salam Zaeef, a former Afghan diplomat and co-founder of the Taliban movement; and Hamid Karzai, the country's first elected president. Both talk in detail about the events that shaped their lives, their thinking and what they make of the collapse of the US-backed government in the country.
Hear the whole series at bbcworldservice.com/afghanistan
Justin Rowlatt looks at the bonanza provided by coal, oil and gas in just the last two centuries. Our modern comfortable way of life is only made possible by burning through a finite stock of fossilised chemical energy. Today we are a fossil fuel society, according to the noted energy historian Vaclav Smil. Fossil fuels underpin everything we take for granted – our long leisurely lives, our material goods, even the crops needed to feed our gigantic populations. Justin takes a tour through the history of the engine with Prof Paul Warde at London’s Science Museum. He explores the dark library of hydrocarbon fuels with chemist Andrea Sella. And he discovers how coal and natural gas created the materials that built our modern urban worlds.
In the early '80s the idea of a television channel showing nothing but music videos 24 hours a day was completely revolutionary. It posed the first real threat to the dominance of Top 40 Radio across America and went on to completely redefine how artists marketed themselves and the way popular music was consumed by the fans. The arrival of MTV in 1981 quickly led to an explosion in the production of music videos in both Europe and the US, many of which went on to define the decade. From Thriller to Live Aid, Britney to Beyonce; MTV has been the soundtrack to some of the biggest moments in popular culture for the last 40 years.
Anu Anand talks to Quentin Sommerville about the rise, fall and potential re-emergence of the Islamic State group.
Vaccines, vaccine hesitancy, Delta and Omicron – what is it like reporting on the pandemic? Host Nuala McGovern links up with journalists in Brazil, the United States and Germany to hear how they have been covering the coronavirus pandemic over the past year. How have things changed, and what are their predictions for 2022? Barbara Carvalho, from Globo News in Brazil, explains why vaccine take-up is high in a country where the national leadership has been sceptical of vaccination. We are also joined by Kathrin Wesolowski, a reporter and fact-checker in Germany, who warns of the dangers of misinformation around the pandemic. And Apoorva Mandavilli, Global Health and Science Reporter for the New York Times, tells us how her feelings go from despair to optimism.
How do you find inner happiness when life in your home country is very hard? Eduardo is a young man in Venezuela facing daily struggles in his life. He finds it difficult to accept he cannot leave his country. Sister Dang Nghiem, is an Amerasian Buddhist nun, born during the Vietnam war. She talks to him about how we might find happiness and personal fulfilment wherever we are.
Female athletes faced brutal choices as allied forces withdrew from Afghanistan - to flee their homes and country or to stay and possibly abandon all hope of pursing their sporting dreams. Some made it onto those final flights out of the country, others faced dangerous journeys across borders with their friends and families. BBC journalist Sue Mitchell examines what has been happening to those who escaped and to the team mates they have left behind. Sue has been following the fortunes of teenage football players settling into new lives in the UK and female athletes stuck in limbo in Pakistan. When the UK Government announced it was granting asylum to the Afghanistan girls development youth football team there was relief that the teenagers could continue to play. Weeks on from that decision the girls are still in Pakistan awaiting visas, new homes and training opportunities. The uncertainty is compounded by stories of brutal acts committed against female athletes still in Afghanistan and worries about family members they have left behind. Kashif Siddiqi, the co-founder of charity Football for Peace, played a leading role in helping the girls flee Afghanistan. He said their perilous journey involved traveling in small groups and crossing the border wearing burqas. He is optimistic that sport can help them rebuild their lives and settle in communities linked by football. In Portugal a group of girl soccer players who were part of the Afghanistan under 15 and under 17 programs are already adjusting to their new lives. They are being helped by the former captain of the Afghanistan women’s soccer team, Farkhunda Muhtaj, who was already acutely aware of how difficult things were for the girls even before the Taliban returned to power. She fears that girls left behind will never play again. Those fears have recently been compounded by reports that a member of the Afghanistan women’s youth volleyball team has been beheaded by the Taliban in Kabul. Former team player, Zaharia Fayazi, relays the increasing anxiety she and others feel about those left behind.
Hundreds of young women from Sierra Leone, West Africa, have been trapped in the Arabian sultanate of Oman, desperate to get home. Promised work in shops and restaurants, they say they were tricked into becoming housemaids, working up to 18 hours a day, often without pay, and sometimes abused by their employers. Some ran away, to live a dangerous underground existence at the mercy of the authorities. Now, they are being rescued with the help of charities and diplomats. Back home, some have empowered themselves for the first time, joining a women’s farming collective. But others can’t easily recover from the ill-treatment and isolation they suffered in Arabia. (Updated version of a programme first broadcast earlier this year.)
Reporter: Tim Whewell.
(Photo: Sierra Leonean women hoping for repatriation after leaving their employers in Oman. Credit: Do Bold)
Humera Iqbal enters the remarkable world of Children of Deaf Adults, or CODAs. At a young age they take on the mighty responsibility of interpreting for their mums and dads outside the home…in a world built for the hearing. That means they are often emotionally switched on, assiduously punctual, confident and super-organised. Humera, associate professor of psychology at University College London, meets CODA children as they chat and translate while their parents are out and about getting things done.
Justin Rowlatt explores what was the original solar energy revolution – harnessing the sun’s rays to grow food. Some 10,000 years ago our ancestors began to till the soil, producing the energy surpluses needed to feed the first cities and civilisations. Growing crops was gruelling work, as Justin discovers at Butser Ancient Farm, when he tries to till some soil himself with a replica Stone Age mattock. But what first prompted our ancestors to take up such an arduous way of life in the first place?
Seventy-five years ago, when aching hunger dominated people’s lives in post-war Europe, a food parcel seemed like a miracle. Particularly when it had come all the way across the Atlantic from the United States. And there is one type of parcel that changed people’s lives across continents: The CAR.E parcel. In 1945, the American relief organisation CARE set out to ease the suffering of starving Europeans after World War Two.
Anu Anand talks to Sarah Rainsford about how everyday life in Russia has changed under Vladimir Putin.
Covid-19 infections in several countries are causing pressures on hospital resources to rise again. At the same time, polarising views persist over vaccination and some health workers have witnessed rising hostility and abuse from the public.
Hosts Nuala McGovern and James Reynolds hear from two health workers in Canada and the UK about the escalating problems they have experienced.
This year started with the focus on Covid-19 vaccine rollouts and ends with the emergence of a new coronavirus variant, Omicron. Ros Atkins looks at how the pandemic has evolved in 2021 and the challenges that lie ahead.
When our bodies recover from a life-threatening illness, it can sometimes be hard for the mind and morale to follow suit. People can even say they resent their body for 'letting them down'. This was the Anne's experience. She speaks to Sister Dang Nghiem for advice about learning to love her body again and having the confidence to live a full life once more.
With crypto currencies – like Bitcoin and Troon - booming there’s never been a better time to mine for crypto online. Mines in this context describe hundreds of computers that solve complex mathematical puzzles to produce cryptocurrency. And with many wanting to jump onto the crypto band wagon mines are springing up across the world - even fake ones. For Assignment, James Clayton speaks to two Indian victims of a crypto scam - who thought they were investing in a mine, which in fact did not exist. He looks at how one of his own BBC reports was used by the scammers as part of the deception. And he investigates how scammers were able to extract money from victims with seeming impunity. With India close to banning crypto currency currencies all together - are crypto scams ruining the Bitcoin dream?
Reporter: James Clayton Producer: Regan Morris Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: Hacker in front of a computer. Credit: Witthaya Prasongsin)
Justin Rowlatt goes right back to the origin of our species two million years ago to explore how the mastery of fire by early humans transformed our metabolism, helping us to evolve our uniquely energy-hungry brains. The physical evidence for early use of fire is frustratingly thin on the ground, according to archaeologist Carolina Mallol. But primatologist Jill Pruetz says she has learned a lot from observing chimpanzees interact with wildfires on the African savanna.
Anu Anand talks to Yogita Limaye about the rights of women and girls in Afghanistan. They reveal how a turbulent history dictates the ever-shifting attitudes towards women and girls in the country.
Several countries are seeing the pressure that a new wave of Covid-19 is placing on their hospitals once more, and they’re reintroducing measures to try and slow down the spread of infections.
Host Nuala McGovern brings together people working in the healthcare sector to think about the pressures on people’s mental health after almost two years of caring for those who are sick or dying due to the pandemic.
Nuala talks with hospital workers in the Dominican Republic, the United States and South Africa. For some it’s constant stress, anxiety and burnout. For others, it’s led to even more serious outcomes including post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD.
The new Omicron variant poses a potential risk of spiralling coronavirus infections globally and governments around the world are putting plans in place to tackle it. One solutions is to make Covid vaccines compulsory. This week, Ros Atkins, looks at the debate around Covid vaccine mandates.
(Photo: A health worker prepares a dose of a Covid-19 vaccine. Credit: Getty Images)
Thousands of people – mostly migrants from the Middle East - are camped in freezing weather at the Poland-Belarus border. Many have spent thousands of dollars to fly into Belarus on tourist visas, with the hope of an easy crossing into the EU. They’re pawns, trapped in a battle of wills between Belarus’ autocratic president, Aleksandr Lukashenko, and Poland and the European Union. The Polish government is taking a tough line, imposing an exclusion zone along the border and sealing off the area to journalists and aid workers. Migrants caught in the forest are arrested and sent back to Belarus. Several, including two children, have died from the cold and more deaths are expected as winter sets in. Meanwhile local residents are divided about how to deal with the humanitarian disaster unfolding on their doorstep. For Assignment, Lucy Ash visits towns and villages in the area to see what impact the crisis is having on people’s lives.
Reporter, Lucy Ash Produced by Lucy Ash and Eva Kyrsiak Editor, Bridget Harney Research, Grzegorz Sokol
(Image: Polish volunteers provide relief to injured migrants stranded in the icy forest. Credit: Agnieszka Sadowska / Agencja Wyborcza.pl)
“It’s alright (I’m only bleeding)”. In 2017, these words were emblazoned on the Stockholm subway or tunnelbana, alongside a giant poster of an ice-skater with a red-stained crotch. The deliberately provocative image was the work of Swedish cartoonist Liv Strömquist, who was on a mission to destigmatise periods. But even in one of the most feminist countries in the world, showing images of menstrual blood in a public space offended many, and triggered a national debate. Stockholm-based broadcaster Maddy Savage meets the artist, and discovers some of the taboo-busting initiatives in culture, business and education that have ridden on the coat-tails of her impact.
Jacob Zuma, South Africa's former president, believes the world is out to poison him. He has claimed that the CIA, MI6, local traitors, and perhaps even one of his wives, have tried to kill him. No wonder he has ordered toxicologists to test everything he eats. But is Zuma the victim of an elaborate international conspiracy that has its roots in the Cold War and South Africa’s liberation struggle? Or is he simply trying to distract attention from a mountain of corruption allegations?
Anu Anand talks to Rana Rahimpour about how decades of turbulence have shaped Iran, and why religion, democracy and ideals all combine to explain Iran today.
At this time of the year, many people traditionally begin to think about coming together for gatherings of family and friends to celebrate events such as Christmas, Kwanzaa and Hanukkah.
But for millions of people, their festive plans are in upheaval after the World Health Organisation identified Omicron a ‘variant of concern’ resulting in travel bans and restrictions across a number of countries. The WHO has since told nations they must prepare for coronavirus surges linked to Omicron.
Picture: Christmas decorations in Tokyo after Japan effectively closed its borders in response to the Omicron variant (REUTERS/Androniki Christodoulou)
The US Supreme Court has heard arguments in the most important abortion case in a generation. It is the biggest challenge to a 1973 ruling that legalised abortion nationally, and could change reproductive rights in the country. Ros Atkins looks at the abortion debate in the US and asks why this case is happening now.
Korea is one of the most stressed and tired nations on earth, a place where people work and study longer hours than anywhere else. And statistics show they are finding it increasingly difficult to switch off and relax; they sleep fewer hours and have higher rates of depression and suicide than almost anywhere else. And as a result sleeplessness and stress has become big business in Korea; from sleep clinics where doctors assess people overnight, to ‘sleep cafes’ offering naps in the middle of the working day, to relaxation drinks. Even Buddhism is moving in on the action with temple retreats and monk-led apps to help stressed out Koreans to relax. There is a lot of money to be made but some Koreans have become worried that in trying to sell religion to the next generation, some faith leaders might be losing touch with Buddhist principles themselves. For Assignment Se-Woong Koo reports from Seoul on a nation that’s wired on staying awake. Producer, Chloe Hadjimatheou.
Internet instigators are organising protests and campaigns using social media and other internet tools and apps to promote their causes. Nina Robinson explores the methods used by activists to create online communities, spearheaded by their charismatic and authentic personalities and hard-hitting visual content.
How did the relationship between Israel and Palestine reach its current point? Jeremy Bowen talks to Anu Anand about the backstory behind the headlines.
The World Health Organisation has been sounding the alarm about the path of the pandemic in Europe, as Covid infections and deaths continue to rise across parts of the continent. Affected countries are listening and responding: mandatory vaccines, vaccine passports and movement restrictions on the unvaccinated are dominating the debate in several European countries. In this episode we bring together people who are resisting or refusing to get the jab.
France and Britain are caught up in disagreements over who needs to do what to stop any more people dying on small boats crossing between the two countries. 27 people were killed in the English Channel on Wednesday, hoping to migrate to the UK. Even after the tragedy, people continue to attempt the dangerous journey in unsafe dinghies. Ros Atkins looks into this political and humanitarian issue
Memory Sidira is buzzing with excitement as she talks about what she is learning during her course at Malawi’s Drone and Data Academy - the first of its kind in Africa. The Academy’s aim is to build local expertise for Malawi’s expanding drone industry and to teach young Africans from across the continent 21st Century skills in drone flight and data analysis. Ruth Evans hears how drones are inspiring young Africans like Memory to reach for the sky.
BBC special correspondent Allan Little addresses the gulf between the reality of war and our ability to comprehend it from afar. His mission as a reporter has been to convey the experiences of people in the midst of war, to draw attention to injustices; to celebrate acts of heroism. So what stops us the listener or viewer, from engaging? Inspired by the philosopher Susan Sontag's essay.
Why are there democracy protests in Hong Kong? Anu Anand talks to Stephen McDonell. The Explanation is a concise audio guide giving you the backstory behind the headlines.
The World Health Organisation (WHO) has warned that Europe is once again “at the epicentre” of the Covid pandemic. The WHO reported that deaths from coronavirus in the continent have increased by 5% - making it the only region in the world where the numbers are going up. Host Nuala McGovern hears from doctors in Romania, The Netherlands and Austria about what is happening in their country, the concerns and hopes for the future. We also hear from two Austrians about why they refuse to get a vaccine, despite the rising Covid-19 cases, and why they believe the new restrictions there have serious implications for the future freedom of their country.
President Putin has said that the West was taking Russia's warnings not to cross its ‘red lines’ too lightly. This comes amid rising tensions between Russia and the West. Ros Atkins has been looking into it.
Sockeye and Chinook salmon make one of the world's great animal migrations, swimming 900 miles from the Pacific Ocean up 6,500 feet into Idaho’s Sawtooth Mountains, where they spawn and die - but that journey may not happen much longer.
In addition to the gauntlet of predators the fish face, from orcas to eagles, they are also running into a man-made obstacle: huge concrete dams.
Most scientists agree the dams need to go for the fish to live, but the dams provide jobs, clean energy, and an inexpensive way for farmers to get their crops to international markets.
However, US Congressman Mike Simpson, a Republican representing Idaho, has a plan to save the salmon. He wants to blow up four dams on the Snake River and reinvent the region's energy infrastructure - a plan which has been overwhelmingly rejected by his own party.
Heath Druzin investigates how a bitter fight is now playing out in America's Pacific Northwest, pitting Native American tribes and conservationists against grain growers and power producers.
Presented by Heath Druzin Produced by Richard Fenton-Smith
(Image: Sockeye salmon. Credit: Mike Korostelev)
New apps that provide access to stock markets are revolutionising the world of trading, but they are also creating problems. A new generation of traders are emerging, fuelled by social media and with dreams of earning a fortune. Seoul journalist Grace Moon visits the Korea Centre For Gambling Problems to explore if easily accessible trading apps are fuelling addictions, before hearing worldwide stories of stock market highs and lows.
In 2009, someone broke into the Climatic Research Unit of the University of East Anglia in the UK and stole emails. The material was distributed online - mainly on blogs linked to climate change sceptics. It was used to make the case that scientists were surreptitiously twisting the facts to exaggerate climate change. That was not the case. But before that became clear, events would take on a life of their own, sparking a global media storm. BBC Security correspondent Gordon Corera goes on the trail of this ‘cyber cold case’ to try and discover who was behind ‘Climategate’.
Frontline medical teams in the UK have fine-tuned the physical treatment of severely ill Covid patients. But one thing that has gone largely unnoticed is their efforts to help those patients – often on ventilators for weeks – keep up the will to live, and enable their families to stay connected with these patients.
Moving away from the use of fossil fuels like coal, oil and gas has been a major talking point at the COP 26 climate conference. Two coal mine workers in the United States and Canada discuss their concerns for their jobs, families and businesses within their communities. They are unhappy that coal is being painted as the “evil thing” and that all will be better if you get rid of it. They tell us at the moment they are working six days a week and can’t get enough coal out.
The husband of a British-Iranian charity worker held in Iran since 2016 has been on hunger strike again to push for her release. Nazanin Zaghari-Ratcliffe has been held there on spying charges, which she denies. Ros Atkins looks at how her story is part of a complicated history between Iran and the UK.
With the UN climate conference in Glasgow drawing to a close Assignment brings us the final programme in a series which has been telling the story of three places devastated by extreme weather events. In this final edition, Maria Margaronis travels to the Greek island of Evia. Here vast areas of centuries old forests, olive groves and houses were burnt by a week-long inferno. And now come the rains, bringing polluted water and mudslides.
Presented by Maria Margaronis and produced by Mark Burman
(Image: A firefighter tries to extinguish wildfire on the island of Evia, August 2021. Credit: Reuters/Nikolas Economou)
This year Zimbabwe has had a bumper crop of the staple food, maize. It is only the second time in two decades that it has grown enough food for the whole population. Last year they barely had half of what was needed and 7.7 million people went hungry. Better rainfall is largely to thank, but a new farming technique, called Pfumvudza is also being celebrated as having a dramatic impact on the amount Zimbabwe’s smallholder farmers have produced, increasing their yields up to four times. Dr Matthew Mbanga is CEO of the organisation which designed Pfumvudza explains the “more yield, less field” principle, which encourages farmers to more intensively cultivate a smaller area of land.
Usually protests against climate change take the form of marches or protests but for some activists this is not enough. Host Nuala McGovern hears from three people in Malaysia, France and Germany about why they have taken their fears about the climate much further - from interrupting a fashion show to risking their lives. For others, their concerns about the climate provoke emotional and mental challenges that are referred to as ‘climate anxiety. Two UK-based activists explain how worrying about climate change is causing their daily lives to be affected by feelings of anger, fear and grief.
Trees absorb carbon dioxide - the main gas heating the planet - so planting more of them is seen by many as a possible climate change solution. But how impactful is it? This week, Ros Atkins, looks at why vast tree-planting initiatives are concerning some experts
The worst effects of climate change are often framed as a problem for the future. But for some, the worst has already happened. As world leaders gather in Glasgow to talk about how to bring down emissions, Assignment tells the story of three places which have been at the sharp end of extreme weather events. Germany's Ahr Valley was a picturesque chain of ancient towns and villages along a small, beautiful river - a region popular with tourists, famous for its wine production. Then on one terrifying night in July, the water rose with little warning, engulfing almost every house. It was the worst flood in the valley for 700 years. People fought their way through the water, clung for hours to roofs and trees before they were rescued. More than 100 lost their lives. Almost all bridges were destroyed, most homes left uninhabitable, businesses ruined. Even now, many have been unable to return. Tim Whewell travels through the valley, meeting some of the victims as they recall how they struggled to escape the flood, remember the friends and relatives they lost and try to rebuild their lives.
Reported and produced by Tim Whewell Editor: Bridget Harney
(Destruction in Germany’s Ahr Valley after the July 2021 floods. Credit: Reuters/Wolfgang Rattay/File Photo)
Could human engineering stabilise the Earth's climate and chemistry in the long term? Tim Lenton of Exeter University explains why the Gaia hypothesis is the key to understanding the future of life on Earth. But what about life beyond Earth? Justin Rowlatt speaks to astronomer Lisa Kaltenegger - a hunter and explorer of planets outside our solar system - and to the science fiction author David Brin. Plus paleobiologist Jan Zalasiewicz describes what might remain of human civilisation in the geological record 100 million years hence.
When President Thabo Mbeki came to power in South Africa in 1999, the country was gripped by an HIV-Aids epidemic - and the president's decision to question scientific evidence, and reject the use of life-saving drugs only made the situation even more dire. But activists and medical staff were ready to fight the government's position by any means.
The changing planet is threatening a number of vulnerable and endangered species, and host Nuala McGovern hears from three experts on polar bears, snow leopards and bumble bees on why we should all care about what is happening to all animals. We learn about the importance of pollinators to healthy ecosystems. We also hear from a sheep farmer in Australia and a vegetable and fish farmer in Nigeria about how climate change is affecting food security and the issues they have in common on two different continents.
Ahead of COP26, the big climate change summit in Glasgow, Ros Atkins looks at the climate promises of two of the world’s biggest polluters – the US and China.
The worst effects of climate change are often framed as a problem for the future. But for some, the worst has already happened. As world leaders prepare to gather in Glasgow to talk about how to bring down emissions, Assignment tells the story of three places which have been at the sharp end of extreme weather events. In June, the Canadian village of Lytton smashed national heat records three days running, reaching an astonishing 49.6 degrees Celsius. Then, it burned to the ground. This documentary, the first in the series, is a vivid portrayal of a place in the crosshairs of climate change, where people don’t just have to imagine the future. They’re now figuring out how to build it.
Justin looks at the period since the meteor that wiped out the dinosaurs, which had seen a steadily cooling climate - until we humans turned up. What can the last 66 million years teach us about the likely consequences of climate change? And can our species make the next big evolutionary leap needed to tackle it? Adrian Lister of the Natural History Museum gives Justin a fossilised tour of how the Earth's fauna adapted to this changing climate.
When Aids began to emerge in the USA and Europe in the 1980s, South Africa was a fractured country, divided by Apartheid. During this time, the ruling National Party seemed disinterested in preventing a disease which was mainly affecting black people and gay men. The fall of Apartheid and the inauguration of President Nelson Mandela didn't improve the situation - the country's first black president was overwhelmed with rebuilding a fragile nation, and the problem of HIV-Aids was pushed down the list of government priorities. But perhaps the most malignant factor shaping South Africa's response to the Aids crisis, was the influence of President Thabo Mbeki, who bought into conspiracies and misinformation, propagated by a fervent Aids denialism movement.
As world leaders, scientists and activists prepare for the UN climate change conference in Scotland, host Nuala McGovern hears how sea level rise is affecting islands in the Caribbean Sea, the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean. People from the Bahamas, the US Florida Keys and a beach restaurant owner in Jamaica share their experiences of disappearing landscapes and their concerns for the future.
More than 50,000 Covid cases have been recorded in the UK for the first time since mid-July. Hospital admissions are also rising, however, daily deaths have fallen slightly. Ros Atkins examines what’s behind the infections and what should happen next.
A unique project aimed at reducing harm to women selling sex in Copenhagen… Every weekend night in Copenhagen’s red light district of Vesterbro, a group of volunteers pull up and park a Red Van. This is no ordinary vehicle. The interior is lit with fairy lights. There is a bed – and a ready supply of condoms. The Red Van constitutes a harm reduction strategy like no other. It is designed for use by women selling sex on the streets – somewhere they can bring their clients. Just as health workers might argue addicts should have a safe place where they can take their drugs to prevent overdoses, the Red Van NGO’s volunteers believe they are creating a more secure environment for Copenhagen’s sex workers or prostitutes.
Producer / presenter: Linda Pressly
(Image: The Red Van with some of its volunteers – Pauline Hoffman Schroder, Sine Plambech and Aphinya Jatuparisakul. Credit: BBC/Linda Pressly)
After recovering from pneumonia for the third time, journalist James Nestor took decisive action to improve his lungs. He questioned why so many humans - and only humans - have to contend with stuffy noses, snoring, asthma, allergies, sinusitis and sleep apnoea, to name but a few. James hears remarkable stories of others who have changed their lives through the power of breath. His deep dive into the unconscious and oft-ignored act of human respiration offers us all a way to breathe easier.
Justin Rowlatt discovers how phosphorus may have held evolution back for a billion years. How plants first colonised the land - precipitating an ice age in the process. And why volcanoes have both rescued and almost wiped out life on the planet, thanks to the carbon dioxide they emit. Anjali Goswami of the Natural History Museum takes Justin on a tour of the big five mass extinction events in the fossil record over the last half billion years.
It began in March of 1987, when the playwright Larry Kramer gave a speech at the Lesbian and Gay Community Services Center in New York’s West Village, telling half the room to stand up. He bluntly informed those in attendance, that many people would be dead from Aids in just a few years, if they didn’t fight back. The US government’s response to the HIV-Aids crisis had been slow, with President Reagan reticent to offend the conservative morals of the Christian Coalition who helped secure his election. In response, the Aids Coalition to Unleash Power - Act Up - took to the streets to demand politicians and public health agencies do more.
Forgiving someone who has hurt us badly can seem impossible. Bearing a grudge can feel like carrying a bag or rocks. Can we learn to move on and forgive?Author of Universal Human, Gary Zukav, offers insights to Joey from Lebanon, now living in Germany, as he struggles to forgive his brother for creating problems in his marriage and seeks to heal the rift it has caused in his family.
World leaders, scientists and activists are preparing for next month’s UN climate change summit in Scotland. These talks have been taking place for decades - but you sense the world is watching like never before, as awareness increases around how the planet is changing. In 1992, a 12-year-old called Severn Cullis-Suzuki from Canada gave a rousing speech and appeal for action at the Earth Summit in Rio. Severn and her father remain long-term environmental activists and host Nuala McGovern brings them together in conversation to hear their thoughts on whether Severn’s speech would be any different today.
In recent weeks, China has sent a record number of military jets into Taiwan’s air defence zone. The Taiwanese Defence Minister, Chiu Kuo-cheng, has said that tensions between China and the self-governing island are the worst in 40 years. Ros Atkins examines what is behind China’s military pressure on Taiwan.
In August, the BBC’s Moscow correspondent, Sarah Rainsford, was expelled from Russia – a country she’s reported on from the start of Vladimir Putin’s presidency over 2 decades ago. Now she’s been designated a ‘national security threat’ and barred indefinitely. The move against the BBC comes at a time of unprecedented pressure on critical voices in Russia – from opposition activists to independent Russian journalists, who are now blacklisted as ‘agents’ of foreign states. For Assignment, Sarah Rainsford explores what happened to her and what this says about the country she’s been forced to leave.
Producer / Presenter: Sarah Rainsford Producer: Will Vernon
(Image: Sarah Rainsford. Credit: Jonathan Ford)
The sailors held captive for years, and the man who managed to free them. Somali pirates made millions of dollars hijacking ships and holding their crews hostage, if no ransom was paid though, sailors could spend years languishing in captivity. When retired British Army Colonel John Steed set out to try to free what he called ‘Somalia’s forgotten hostages’ he had no money and no hostage-negotiation experience, so how did he do it? Colin Freeman, who was himself taken hostage in Somalia, hears the remarkable stories of the sailors and their saviours.
100 years ago English PEN was founded to create a “common meeting ground in every country for all writers.” and it quickly grew into an international organisation. The organisation has long campaigned for Freedom of Expression for writers. To mark the centenary, in a special edition of World Book Cafe, Ritula Shah and her guests discuss current threats to Freedom of Expression around the world and hear from writers, including Tsitsi Dangarembga, about the power and importance of storytelling.
Justin explores the Precambrian period: a kind of dark ages, spanning most of our planet's history, but about which we have very few fossil records. What we do know is that it contained two of the most important developments in evolution. One gave us a breathable atmosphere. The other made possible all the animals that now breathe it. The Natural History Museum's Imran Rahman introduces Justin to this strange bacterial world, while Aubrey Zerkle of the University of St Andrews explains why cyanobacteria may have been the greatest mass murderers in history.
The pandemic has made many people unsure about the future. Issues such as climate catastrophe have come to seem all the more real. How do we keep hope alive for our children and ourselves? Reverend Canon Mpho Tutu van Furth offers insights to Liyang from China, now living in New Zealand, as she worries about the world her children will live in and how she should prepare them for it.
We return to the beginning of the global Aids crisis and explore the personal and political struggles of the epidemic, as it unfolded in two very different countries – the United States and South Africa – and hear stories from people who fought through it, and survived. The series begins in the USA, where 40 years ago the Centers for Disease Control published a memo flagging a rare pneumonia found in five previously healthy, young gay men in California. Two of the men had died. These would be the first recorded cases of Aids in the world – a disease which would go on to kill 35 million people.
Children who have a compromised immune system remain at high risk during the ongoing pandemic if they develop Covid-19. Their parents continue to protect their children from those who no longer wear masks or - in some cases - refuse to get a vaccine. We hear from three mothers, in the US and the UK, who share their hopes and fears for the future. In some US states, mask and vaccination mandates are banned.
In 2019, the UK became the first major economy to set a net zero carbon emissions goal by 2050. Now, as the country gets ready to host a major UN climate change summit in a few weeks, Ros Atkins looks at the challenges posed by the net zero ambition.
Amongst the millions of documents released in the ‘Pandora Papers’ leak of offshore financial information are a number of documents that one British Iranian family business would rather have remained hidden. In this investigation Assignment follows the trail of millions of dollars tainted by bribery and corruption. Piecing together key documents from the leak reveals how earnings from Unaoil – a company involved in winning oil and gas contracts through bribery in the Middle East - were invested into UK property.
Why does the UK remain a go-to destination for some of the world’s most tainted money? And why does it take a leak for the truth to be revealed about who’s really invested in some of the country’s prime property?
Reporter: Felicity Hannah Producer: Anna Meisel and Kate West Editor: Gail Champion
(Image: Pandora Papers illustration. Credit: BBC)
Five hundreds years ago a Spanish physiologist declared that genius was stored in the testicles. Even today, studies have shown that people associate men with genius more than women. Award-winning science writer and broadcaster Angela Saini wants to know why. Saini examines why people are so reluctant to credit intellectual brilliance to women - now and throughout history. Einstein, for instance, needed a woman’s help. She hears about a proposal for making the concept of genius more inclusive and discusses the impact on girls in school when teachers take gender out of classrooms.
How did this continuous chemical reaction that we call "life" first begin? And why did the hellish conditions of the early Earth provide the perfect birthplace? Justin Rowlatt speaks to two scientists with rival theories about the origin of life, both trying to recreate it in their labs - John Sutherland of Cambridge University, and Nick Lane of University College London. Plus the Natural History Museum's Sara Russell shows Justin a rock that is older than the Earth itself - the Winchcombe meteorite.
Decisions about the course of our lives can seem overwhelming. When we come to a junction in our life it can be hard to decide which way to turn. Is there a process to make those choices easier, and increase the chance of success? Sister Dang Nghiem offers insights to Pae from Thailand as she tries to make a confident decision about her future career.
Despite the life saving properties of vaccination against Covid-19, not everyone has chosen to get the jab - even in countries where vaccines are readily available. Karnie Sharp and James Reynolds hear from two Americans who regret their decisions - including the man who almost died and ended up with a double lung transplant after catching the disease. We also hear from flight attendants in Nigeria, Spain and the US about dealing with unruly passengers during a pandemic - especially when asked to wear a mask. Plus a scientist in Uganda explains the vaccine situation there during the country’s second wave.
The UK and the US have been experiencing supply shortages across a number of industries. There are many factors involved, including the Covid-19 pandemic, which has had a knock-on effect on the global supply chain. Ros Atkins examines how policies, politics and uncertainties impact our daily lives.
In the UK’s most disputed region, Northern Ireland, the Unionist community has long been known for tenacity and even, say its critics, inflexibility in its determination to maintain links with Britain. Yet a new generation now seem less interested in the sectarian politics of their parents and grandparents. Born after the 1998 ‘Good Friday’ peace agreement that ended the IRA’s armed insurrection against British rule, many so-called Ceasefire Babies say they have different priorities, including jobs, mental health, LGBT+ rights and tackling climate change. Some refuse to be defined by either British or Irish identity and simply describe themselves as ‘Northern Irish.’ However, sectarian flags and threatening murals on ‘peace walls’ still define the urban landscape in some parts of Northern Ireland. And now, following Brexit, the Westminster government has agreed to a protocol which effectively puts a customs border in the Irish Sea – angering other Unionists who say it means they are being separated from mainland Britain. For Assignment, Lucy Ash travels to Northern Ireland to find out if Unionism’s Ceasefire Babies can really escape the past.
Producer: Mike Gallagher Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: Young female loyalist band prepares to take part in the annual Relief of Derry march on August 14, 2021. Credit: Charles McQuillan/Getty Images)
Love coaching is a multi-billion dollar global industry, and one of the fastest growing in the world. More single people than ever are looking for advice to find a lasting romantic partnership. The result has been an explosion of coaches who claim to guide you to love through viral videos and costly in-person seminars. The BBC attends one such seminar in Kenya, with one of East Africa’s most famous love and lifestyle coaches, Robert Burale. He says he can show women all the secrets and tricks to find love in days. But does it work? Is this really a route to buy love, or simply a way to sell a dream?
Love coaching is a multi-billion dollar global industry, and one of the fastest growing in the world. More single people than ever are looking for advice to find a lasting romantic partnership. The result has been an explosion of coaches who claim to guide you to love through viral videos and costly in-person seminars. The BBC attends one such seminar in Kenya, with one of East Africa’s most famous love and lifestyle coaches, Robert Burale. He says he can show women all the secrets and tricks to find love in days. But does it work? Is this really a route to buy love, or simply a way to sell a dream?
To have a beautiful, strong, lasting, successful relationship at the core of our lives is an ideal that takes root at an early age. But do we always know what a successful relationship looks like? And can we sometimes hope and expect too much? Ferzeen is originally from India, now in the USA, and has had trouble building relationships. She thinks there might be something from her past that is standing in her way. Dr Shefali advises her on the most important step to take first.
Vietnam was, until recently, one of the world’s Covid success stories. Its policy of early border closures, lockdowns and track and tracing ensured that fewer than 40 people had died from the disease since the start of the pandemic. This all changed in May and host Karnie Sharp talks to two journalists in Ho Chi Minh City and Hanoi about what happened and what went wrong. She also hears from three parents and their children in Manila on the effect of remote learning for over 18 months, with most children also unable to leave their homes.
Germany’s first female chancellor, Angela Merkel, is standing down after 16 years in office. This matters because a major figure is exiting the global stage. She has worked with four US presidents and been at the centre of European and global politics. As Germans head to the polls, Ros Atkins looks at the race to succeed one of Europe’s most influential leaders.
Vietnamese migration to the UK is the second highest after Albania and each year the numbers are rising. Not even the tragedy of the Essex lorry disaster in 2019 has been enough to put people off. Then 39 Vietnamese migrants suffocated in a container lorry as they came over the English channel. BBC journalist Nga Pham talks to people in Vietnam about their desperation to leave their country. Coming from some of the most economically deprived provinces, families pay between $30-45,000 to people smugglers to send hundreds of their children out each year in the hope of a better future. She meets people who are now working in the shadow economy in the UK, in nail bars, cannabis farms and restaurants, hiding in plain sight. She also talks to those who were caught up in trafficking networks, discovered by the police and deported back to Vietnam with nothing to show for their years of slave labour.
Reporter: Nga Pham Producer: Anna Horsbrugh-Porter A Just Radio production for the BBC World Service
(Image: A group of women harvest rice, Vietnam. Credit: BBC)
After years in the wilderness, athletes with a learning disability are back at the London 2012 Paralympics - and Dan is among them. There are new tests designed to stop cheating. Do they work? And why, 21 years on from the basketball scandal, are there still fewer medals for intellectual impairment athletes than there were at Sydney 2000? Plus Dan catches up one last time with Ray, the genuinely disabled captain of the infamous Spanish basketball team. The scandal has taken a big toll on his life.
As Afghanistan reaches a turning point with American troops leaving the country, BBC Pashto presenter Sana Safi tells the story of how her own life has been intertwined with the fate of her country. She tells the story of what it was like for a child to survive in a country caught between the crosshairs of geopolitical conflict, of surviving religious fundamentalism, of growing up in a country without music or books. She describes how violence and conflict forced her family to move from Kandahar to Helmand, only to find themselves caught in the crossfire of a gun battle. How under Taliban rule she effectively became a prisoner in her own home. How the continuing decades of conflict brought tragedy to her own family – and how she could only find security by moving to the UK, where she suffered the pain of separation from her family and homeland.
Can sticking to our dreams end up holding us back? Diane and her husband promised they would sell their home on retirement and travel the world. Sadly, he passed away before they could do that. Diane wants to carry on with that plan but the pandemic has made her realise the richness of her community and given her a sense that as she gets older she needs to make best use of the time she has. Perhaps she is wrong to turn her back on where she lives and what she has. Sister Dang Nghiem, a Buddhist Nun, offers gentle counsel and helps Diane towards a resolution. She discusses with the BBC's Sana Safi that the long-long dreams we hold may be found to actually be a distraction from what really matters.
The United States continues to record some of the highest infection and death rates in the world due to Covid-19. Host Nuala McGovern brings together two hospital nurses in Florida. They share the heartbreak and exhaustion of treating severely ill and dying patients, often young, who they say could have avoided hospital completely by getting vaccinated. Two doctors working in Delhi and Mumbai, say vaccination numbers are soaring. But they worry that festivals and other celebrations may lead to another surge of the disease. They are also concerned the real legacy of coronavirus in India may be its impact on mental health and the education of children in poorer communities. We also hear from teachers in India and the Philippines.
The UK joins a growing number of rich countries offering Covid booster vaccines, whilst across Africa only 3% of people have been vaccinated against the virus. Ros Atkins looks into the issue of vaccine inequity
Assignment reveals the inside story of Ramon Abbas, one of a new breed of global cyber fraudsters.
Snared by the FBI in 2020, Abbas’ is better known as Instagram influencer Hushpuppi, who flaunted a life of designer clothes, private jets and penthouse apartments to millions of followers. Little did they know that his lavish lifestyle was funded through a complex web of cyber-heists.
Most cyber-criminals remain nameless, faceless, anonymous and all but untraceable. Now, Assignment unmasks Ramon Abbas, revealing a complicated, sometimes ruthless character driven by a thirst for wealth and celebrity status.
A criminal case is brought against the so-called fake Paralympians and the team’s organisers. The prosecutor gives the inside take on the legal process and an outcome that left many frustrated. And Dan hears about the man accused of being the mastermind behind the scam and his surprising back story. Will he explain himself and apologise to the victims?
Jealousy, rudeness, lack of respect - it can be hard not to be troubled by the way people treat us. Sometimes we may feel that people that we know are jealous and are trying to hold us back. After a personal question from Sneha in India, author of 'Universal Human' Gary Zukav joins the BBC's Sana Safi to explore how to reduce the hurt and distress caused by what others may think.
The Taliban is stamping its authority on Afghanistan, and dealing forcefully with those demonstrating against the new regime. In recent days, the details of the new government's all-male cabinet have provoked some to take to the streets in protest. Host Karnie Sharp hears from people who have been caught up in the demonstrations. Two female medical professionals, a dentist and a doctor, describe how their working lives have changed, having been told they can no longer treat male patients - or even drive to their jobs. Another Afghan woman, a flight attendant, describes her late-night escape from the country.
Twenty years on from the 9/11 terror attacks, New Yorkers and those affected by the events recall where they were and how they have managed to process the horror of what happened. Presenter and New Yorker Joan Mastropaolo, now a volunteer at the 9/11 Tribute Museum, takes us on a tour of the 9/11 memorial and explains what it means to her. Former US poet laureate Billy Collins recalls how writing and performing the official memorial poem – Names. Annie Thoms, a teacher from one of the schools close to ground zero explains how High School students, forced to evacuate amid the confusion. Wajahat Ali, a 20-year-old student at the time recalls how 9/11 changed his and the lives of fellow Muslims overnight.
Gordon Corera investigates the mysterious illness that has struck American diplomats and spies. It began after some reported hearing strange sounds in Havana 2016, but reports have since spread around the world. Doctors, scientists, intelligence agents and government officials have all been trying to find out what exactly causes these sounds and the lingering health effects. Some call it an act of war, others wonder if it is some new and secret form of surveillance while others believe it could even be in the mind. So who or what is responsible?
Producer: Emma Wells Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: Illustration of a man sitting in a chair in a laboratory, a device behind him pulsing wavy beams of microwave energy through his head. Credit: BBC/Gerry Fletcher)
There are allegations the cheating went wider within intellectual disability sport, and that it wasn’t just the gold-winning Spanish basketball team. An investigator for the International Paralympic Committee reveals what he found, and discusses specific accusations he heard about another of the basketball teams. The probe has shocking consequences for intellectual disability sport: a total ban from the Paralympic Games. Dan has a heart-to-heart with his mum and dad about the impact on his budding swimming career. And Dan speaks to the man who was in charge of the International Paralympic Committee when it took the decision that has overshadowed Dan’s life ever since.
Zorba’s theme from the 1964 film is what the composer Mikis Theodorakis will always be known for outside his native Greece, but in his time he was a figure on the world stage, rubbing shoulders with poets, politicians and artists like Pablo Neruda, Olof Palme and Salvador Dali. His most powerful music evokes a spirit of heroic rebellion that resonated with liberation movements from Greece to Latin America. And, far beyond Zorba, he wrote classical symphonies, ballets, operas, and popular songs as light as a sea breeze. Maria Margaronis recalls this most prolific and energetic composer and political activist, who was arrested, exiled, imprisoned and tortured many times during the most turbulent years of Greece’s 20th Century.
When Covid restrictions are lifted, the effort to return to our former lives can present unexpected personal trials. Shops, restaurants and offices have re- opened in Detroit, USA but Alex is finding it very hard to go back into the outside world and start socialising again. Dr Shefali helps him find a way forward and discusses the challenges of leaving home and re-entering the public world in places that have started opening up again, with presenter Sana Safi.
The last US soldier has left Afghanistan, leaving the Taliban in control of the vast majority of the country. Working women have been told to stay at home for now, for their own safety. Host Nuala McGovern hears from two sisters, who say they feel trapped in their family home in Afghanistan, unable to set foot outside and terrified of the Taliban. She meets Afghan women, who are volunteering at a community centre in London, helping those who have fled their country. They share their own stories of anguish, while helping hundreds of people a day, who continue to try to get their relatives out of the country. Nuala also catches up with a young woman who managed to flee the country on one of the last planes out. She's now in the US - but is still feeling pursued by the Taliban, who are sending her threatening messages in the middle of the night.
The fire that destroyed the sprawling Moria asylum seekers’ camp on the Greek island of Lesvos last September made headlines around the world. For the asylum seekers who lost their makeshift home and most of their possessions, it was a devastating setback. For Greece, still hosting thousands of migrants Europe won’t take in, the fire intensified a determination to move them on elsewhere. What’s happened to some of Moria’s former residents since then? Working with Athens-based journalists Katy Fallon and Stavros Malichudis, Maria Margaronis follows a few of them - all Afghans - as they negotiate the search for safety and stability some migrants call “the game.” After the fall of Kabul to the Taliban, tens of thousands of Afghans are trying to leave their country. These are the stories of some who had already made the journey.
Presented and produced by Maria Margaronis Special thanks to Lighthouse Reports for their support in gathering this material
(Image: Refugee girl playing in the ashes of the ruined Moria camp. Credit: Nicolas Economou/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
The cheating is now out in the open and the players - including genuinely-disabled captain Ray - have to hand back their gold medals. But how and when did the cheating start? An ex-coach of the team, who was in charge until just two years before the scandal, says he began to suspect something was wrong way before Sydney 2000. Plus Dan tries to find an answer to one of the biggest questions of all - why did the cheats do it?
What can we learn about a culture from what they search online? From xenophobia in Nigeria, shut-in teenagers in Japan, India’s biometric identity card, and the creation of viral TikTok slang, we look at the search trends that have come to define us. Ben Arogundade investigates what the most popular searches reveal about our approach to death, dating, and digital identity. Tech journalist Nilesh Christopher tell us that India’s pandemic searches may be more complicated than they first appear, and Peruvian writer María José Osorio muses on a strangely nostalgic query that was among one of Peru’s most frequently probed questions online.
Keeping some peace of mind when the world around you is in turmoil is a great challenge. Mohammed finds it hard to maintain concentration, he sleeps 12 hours a night but awakes exhausted. He lives in Afghanistan, which is in a state of conflict, and spends a lot of time on social media. Sister Dang Nghiem offers advice on how to make your mind a beautiful refuge from the chaos and insecurity in the outside world. She discusses the North Korean communists taking over Saigon when she was a child and the BBC’s Sana Safi compares her own experience of life in Afghanistan under the Taliban.
Despite terror warnings, Afghans continued to gather at Kabul’s airport, desperate to get onto a plane. What was feared, and what is sadly familiar in Afghanistan, happened - bomb blasts brought further devastation. Around 100,000 people have been flown out of the country though since the Taliban takeover. We hear stories from two women who have been at the airport and managed to get a flight. Also, two students in Kabul and Herat share their fears about being unable to continue their education at present. For one, an encounter with a member of the Taliban on the streets brought both physical and mental pain. Host Nuala McGovern also connects two sportswomen, who have represented their country. They share their concerns about the future of female footballers and athletes in Afghanistan.
How Catalonia’s housing crisis spawns opportunities for organised crime… Spain has a history of squatting. After the property crash of 2008 many families were forced to occupy homes that did not belong to them because they could not pay their mortgages. Now a darker side to ‘okupacion’ has emerged. Organised crime has seen an opportunity. Some flats in Barcelona have become ‘narcopisos’ - properties used to process or sell drugs. Other empty properties have been ‘sub-let’ by gangs to families who cannot afford a commercial rent. And the pandemic has spawned a new commercial model – extortion. These are cases where squatters occupy a property and demand a ‘ransom’ from the owner of several thousand Euros before they will leave. Enter the controversial ‘desokupa’ companies – firms run by boxers and bouncers who will evict unwanted 'tenants.'
Producer / Presenter: Linda Pressly Producer / Presenter in Spain: Esperanza Escribano Editor: Bridget Harney
(Image: Jorge Fe, director of FueraOkupas – a company dedicated to evicting squatters and unwanted tenants. Credit: BBC/Esperanza Escribano)
"We are our history," said James Baldwin. But how history is remembered depends on what materials survive, and who deems those materials worthy of preserving. Maya Millett - a writer, editor and founder of Race Women, an archive project dedicated to honouring early Black American feminists - speaks to the archivists who are working to ensure the voices and stories of African-Americans are not forgotten. As racism and violence against African-Americans continues, collecting, cataloguing, and preserving the truth has never been so vital in preventing the distortion of history.
A basketball journalist in Spain recognises three of the players in the gold-medal-winning intellectual disability basketball team - and they are not disabled. He has even played on the same team as one of them. But when he publishes his story in a national basketball magazine, the team’s organisers show certificates supposedly proving the players’ disability status. The denials continue until another of the players - who turns out to have been a journalist - publishes his own article exposing the fraud.